Mandarin Primer: An Intensive Course in Spoken Chinese [Reprint 2013 ed.] 9780674732889, 9780674732872

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Mandarin Primer

Mandarin Printer An Intensive Course in SPOKEN

Yuen Ren

CHINESE

Chao

Published By HARVARD UNIVERSITY

PRESS · C A M B R I D G E

LONDON: G E O F F R E Y CUMBERLEGE: O X F O R D UNIVERSITY PRESS

1948

Copyright, 1948 by the President a n d Fellows of Harvard College

Printed by The Colonial Press Inc. Clinton, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Preface an intensive course in the sense that it is designed for learning Chinese the hard and fast way — hard because the first few lessons call for very hard, concentrated work and fast because, if hard enough work is done at the start, the student will be able, at the end of one year on a double-course basis, to feel fully at ease in the use of spoken Chinese. The contents of this book originated from a twelve-week intensive course in Cantonese given at Harvard University in the summer of 1942, which has since been published under the title of Cantonese Primer (1947). The text of the lessons was translated into Mandarin and used in the Army Specialized Training Program at the Harvard School for Overseas Administration in 1943-44 and subsequently in civilian courses. The present course differs from that of the Cantonese Primer in the following respects. The chapter on pronunciation has had to be rewritten, of course. The chapter on grammar has been reorganized and greatly expanded. Lessons 19-21 on "Renting a House," " T h e Walrus and the Carpenter," and "Listening and Listening I n " are entirely new. On the suggestion of readers of the Cantonese book, citations in the introductory chapters have been included in the Index and in the Character Text. The book may be used as a textbook for the classroom or for selfteaching with the help of a Mandarin-speaking guide or informant or of phonograph records. For the few unusual minds which can learn how to differentiate and integrate by reading the article on the calculus in an encyclopedia, it may be possible to learn to pronounce Chinese from the description of it in the chapter on pronunciation. But even the conversational lessons should be heard as spoken, with proper expression, by a Chinese. For one of the features of spoken Chinese to which this course is specially devoted is the use of various stylistic elements of the language, such as interjections of agreement and dissent, sentence intonation, and other lubricants of conversational give and take, and these things should better be learned by ear than from description. The companion volume, Character Text, can be used as the text for the Chinese teacher to read from, and as a text for learning the characters. The answers to the exercises appear in cursive writing and are meant to be legible only to the teacher. However, any American student able to read Chinese cursive writing should be entitled to make use of the answers. The author wishes to thank The Commercial Press, Ltd. of Shanghai for permission to use the Chinese version of Lesson 20 from his Tzoou Daw Jinqtzlii and the stories contained in Lesson 4, 6, 7, and 12 from his Phonograph Course in the National Language (1928). He is also indebted ν T H I S IS

vi

PREFACE

to Macmillan and Company of London for the use of material from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll. He is particularly grateful to Professor Serge Eliss^eff for permission to use the major part of the Cantonese Primer as a basis for the present course. The author's indebtedness to Leonard Bloomfield on grammatical theory is obvious and it will not be possible to make acknowledgments on all specific points. He is also indebted to Fang Kuei Li for delaying the completion of the book far beyond the deadline by suggesting the rewriting of the chapter on grammar. Thanks are also due to all who have helped in seeing through the preparation of the book: to Anlin Wang Ku and the author's daughters Lensey and Bella for the preparation and checking of the manuscript, to his daughter Rulan for doing the exercises, and to Kao Liang Chow who wrote the whole Character Text. The author alone, however, should be responsible for such errors and inconsistencies as a book of this kind is likely to have and would welcome with appreciation corrections and criticisms from the reader. Y U E N R E N CHAO Cambridge, Massachusetts March SI, 1947

Contents PART ONE: INTRODUCTION I. II. III.

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE PRONUNCIATION AND ROMANIZATION GRAMMAR A. Words, 33. B. Sentences, 34. C. Syntax, 37. D. Morphology, 39. E. C o m p o u n d s , 41. F. P a r t s of speech, etc., 45. G. T r a n s l a t i o n of English G r a m m a t i c a l Categories, 50. IV. THE CHARACTERS V. METHOD OF STUDY

3 19 33

60 72

PART TWO: FOUNDATION WORK A. B. C. D.

THE TONES DIFFICULT SOUNDS THE SYSTEM O F SOUNDS SYSTEM OF TONE SANDHI

85 92 97 107

PART THREE: THE LESSONS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

YOU, I, AND HE ' F O U R M E N ' 120 THINGS 126 SPEAKING CHINESE 134 TELEPHONING 140 UP, DOWN, LEFT, R I G H T , FRONT, BACK, AND MIDDLE 148 A SMOKE RING 158 MR. CAN'T STOP TALKING 164 ANTONYMS 172 A GOOD MAN 180 THE TAILLESS RAT 188 WATCHING THE YEAR OUT 194 A RESCUE AT SEA 204 INQUIRING AFTER A SICK MAN 210 CONVERSATION W I T H THE DOCTOR 216 WORLD GEOGRAPHY 224 CHINESE GEOGRAPHY 230 TALKING ABOUT INDUSCO 236 TO T H E MINSHENG WORKS 242 vii

viii

CONTENTS 19. RENTING A HOUSE 20. THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER 21. LISTENING AND LISTENING IN 22. STUDYING 23. THE VERNACULAR LITERATURE MOVEMENT

250 256 266 272 282

24. AN AMERICAN MAKES A SPEECH

290

VOCABULARY AND INDEX

301

ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

336

SYNOPSIS OF TONAL SPELLING

336

Mandarin Primer

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I THE CHINESE LANGUAGE 1. Old and New Chinese. — Chinese is usually regarded as one of the oldest languages of the world. Chinese students entering American colleges are often allowed to offer Chinese for entrance Latin or Greek rather than for French or German. Now, the Chinese as spoken today by a radio announcer from Station XGOA, Nanking, must be as new and as unlike the Chinese of Confucius, as, say, the English heard over an American radio is new and unlike the English of Chaucer. On the other hand, whether in Europe or in China, people must have talked for thousands of years before any of their talk began to be recorded. Thus, all languages, so far as we can tell, are equally old in their origin and equally new in their present form. How is it then that Chinese has a reputation for antiquity? There are several reasons for this. One is that the Chinese literary idiom, which is widely used for all purposes though in modern pronunciation, is largely based on the language of the ancient classics. More students in a Chinese college know their Mencius (4th century B.C.), whose style seems to them quite modern, than students in an American college know Chaucer (14th century A.D.). Another reason is the relative social and cultural homogeneity and stability in China during more millenniums than has been the case with most other peoples of the world. Of upheavals China had plenty. But even the conquering Mongols and Manchus made no impression on the language. There was no large-scale borrowing of words such as followed the Norman invasion of Britain. Finally, the Chinese language seems old because, instead of spreading by subdivision into various national languages, which would then seem new, as do the Romance languages descended from Latin, it spread by diffusion into culturally less advanced neighbors in the form of borrowed words and borrowed characters. These borrowed words and characters are still used in the forms known as Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean, and Sino-Annamese and stand as testimonies to the antiquity of the Chinese language, a language which gave more than it took and maintained its identity and comparative homogeneity within the four seas. The practice of giving entrance credit for Chinese as an ancient language is therefore no mere matter of courtesy. 2. Our Knowledge of Old Chinese. — The ancient Chinese language is known to every literate Chinese, but only in the sense that the text in 3

4

INTRODUCTION

characters and the idiom of the composition are understood. When read aloud, it is always in the pronunciation of a modern dialect. Few Chinese scholars know what the ancient language actually sounded like. Not that the Chinese have been unconcerned with the sounds of language. The Chinese have throughout the ages been keen students of the sounds of language. But because of the relatively non-phonetic nature of the characters, they have had to deal chiefly in the abstract classification and relationship of sounds rather than with the phonetic values of the sounds themselves. Their conception of the language is accurate, but not concrete. Much of the work of Chinese scholars had to wait for Western linguists like Bernhard Karlgren or Western-trained Chinese linguists like Li Fang-kuei before it could be interpreted in phonetic terms. To use Karlgren's own figure, traditional Chinese phonology may be compared with a book of algebra. It contains great truths, but one must substitute numerical values into the formulas before the truths can be applied. The numerical values are the modern dialects of China. By studying the sounds of modern dialects (including the present pronunciation in Japan, Korea, and Indo-China of anciently borrowed words) and comparing them with the systematizations of traditional Chinese phonology, Karlgren has made a reconstruction in all detail (except the actual melodic values of the tones) of the ancient Chinese pronunciation of about 600 A.D., which, after some revisions, has gained wide acceptance among most Occidental and the majority of Chinese scholars. This he has named Ancient Chinese. Making use of the studies by Chinese philologists in a different direction — the structure of characters and the riming patterns in Shih Ching — he reconstructed the pronunciation of the period roughly one millennium earlier than that of Ancient Chinese, which he calls Archaic Chinese.1 Though he is less sure of the details of this reconstruction and has won less wide acceptance for it, there is nevertheless general agreement as to its main features. 3. Archaic and Ancient Chinese. — Broadly speaking, Archaic Chinese had a very rich system of consonants and vowels, and probably only three tones. I t had four grades of initial consonants, as in t, t', d, d', i.e. voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, voiced unaspirated, and voiced aspirated.2 It had the final consonants -m, -n, -ng, -p, -t, -k, -b, -d, -g, -r, but no final 1 Both Ancient and Archaic Chinese are summarized in Karlgren's 471-page "article," Grammata Serica, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, No. 12, Stockholm, 1940. A more popular exposition of this and related topics is found in his Philology and Ancient China, Oslo, 1926. ä In Mandarin, Cantonese, and most other modern dialects, there are only two grades of initials, e.g., (unaspirated) t and (aspirated) t', which we write as d and t in the present course. There is no real [d]-sound in Mandarin. See pp. 21, 92.

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

5

semi-vowel; in other words, it had no descending diphthong of the aw, ei type. There were some initial consonant-clusters like gl-, kl-, bl-, pl-, but these were relatively infrequent. From Archaic to Ancient Chinese, the most important change was that the pure voiced initials and endings b, d, g had become semi-vowels, e.g., Archaic diog > Ancient däu ( > Mandarin yau 'shake')· There were four tones in Ancient Chinese, Even, Rising, Going, and Entering, the last comprising words ending in -p, -t, -k. A large part of the Going Tone came from Archaic forms ending in -b, -d, -g. 4. Growth of Modern Dialects. — All modern dialects are not descendants of one line of ancestors, Archaic Chinese and Ancient Chinese. However, the majority of modern dialects are close enough descendants of them to allow statements of phonetic laws to be made with reference to one line of ancestors without leaving too unwieldy a body of exceptions. There are two reasons for this. One is that the languages reconstructed by Karlgren, in the opinion of the majority of Chinese scholars, are eclectic systems from various old dialects. By thus admitting your great-uncle's tablets into your ancestral hall, your second cousins look like first cousins and first cousins like sisters and brothers. The other reason is that today's dialects, like today's people, are descendants of relatively few ancestors, while the other old branches of the language have died off without leaving any descendants. Now there is no Modern Chinese with a capital M, except Μ as in Mandarin, which, important as it is practically, is linguistically one of the least informative of the modern dialects, since it has evolved farthest away from ancient pronunciation. But we can note certain broad changes since 600 A.D. which have affected most modern dialects, including Mandarin. The Ancient voiced (sonant) initials b', d', g', dz', z, etc. have lost their voicing in all dialects except those of Chekiang, parts of Kiangsu, and parts of Hunan. Some of the Ancient bilabials have, under certain conditions, become dentilabials in all China except in the South and the Southeast. Ancient final consonants -m, -p, -t, -k are either lost or changed except in the extreme South. The four tones of Ancient Chinese have been subdivided into an upper and a lower series, according as the initials were originally voiceless or voiced. The extent of subdivision varies with the dialect, but the Even Tone is subdivided into two classes almost everywhere. In most of northern China, the Entering Tone has not only lost its consonantal endings but also its class identity, inasmuch as it has been redistributed into the other tones. Thus, the four tones of Mandarin are not the four tones of Ancient Chinese, but correspond only to its first three tones, of which the first has been split in two. On the whole, the southern dialects have preserved ancient endings and tone-classes best, the central

6

INTRODUCTION

and eastern dialects the ancient initials best, while the other dialects have departed farthest from Ancient Chinese. 5. Classification of Dialects. — The dialects of China are distributed over three zones. The zone of the greatest variety is in the southeastern coastal provinces including Kwangtung, Fukien, most of Hunan, Kiangsi, and Chekiang, and parts of Kwangsi, Anhwei, and Kiangsu. The second zone is the great Mandarin-speaking region comprising most of the rest of China proper and the greater part of Manchuria. In the third zone, in the territories and the borderlands of the southwestern provinces and the province of Sinkiang, non-Chinese languages are spoken side by side with Chinese in some form of Mandarin. While the last zone includes more than half the area of all China, it includes less than one-tenth of the population. There are nine main groups of dialects in China, six in the first zone and three in the second zone. The first six groups are Cantonese, Kan-Hakka, Amoy-Swatow, Foochow, Wu, and Hsiang. The Cantonese group, the Kan-Hakka group (to which most of Kiangsi belongs), and the AmoySwatow group (to which the Chinese-speaking part of Hainan Island belongs), are characterized by their preservation of ancient consonantal endings -m, -φ, -t, -k. The Foochow dialect forms a group apart, though it is near the Amoy-Swatow group in many respects and often classed together with it under the term Min group, Min being the literary name of Fukien. The Wu dialects (including those of Shanghai and Wenchow) and the Hsiang group, Hsiang being the literary name of Hunan (though Changsha, the capital of the province, is not typical of the group) are characterized by their retaining the voicing in ancient initials like b', d', g', dz', etc. In addition to the usual two Even Tones and one or two Rising Tones, these six groups have for the most part two Going Tones and two Entering Tones. The second dialect zone, including roughly two-thirds of the population and three-fourths of the area of China proper, is the zone of the Mandarin dialects, which can be divided into a northern group, a southern group, and a southwestern group. The northern group includes the Yellow River basin and Manchuria. To this group belongs the dialect of Peiping. The southern Mandarin group covers a rather small area between Hankow and Nanking. The southwestern group covers the region of the greatest dialectal uniformity — including Szechwan, Yunnan, Kweichow, part of Kwangsi, and part of Hupeh up to and including Hankow. All Mandarin dialects agree in having relatively simple sound-systems. They have four or five tones. They have a common vocabulary for the most frequent words such as personal pronouns, demonstratives, interrogatives, and particles.3 ' For further details on dialects, see Ting Wen-chiang (V. K. Ting), Weng Wen-hao (W. H. Wong), and Ts&ig Shih-ying, Chung-kuo fen-sheng hsin-t'u φ gjj ft- ^ jgj

THE CHINESE

LANGUAGE

7

The mutual intelligibility of different dialects depends, as in the case of other languages, both upon the dialects themselves and upon the educational background of the speakers. The three groups of Mandarin dialects may be compared with the English dialects of the British Isles, North America, and Australia. Then, if abstraction is made of the fact, with all its implications, that all China writes one common idiom in one common system of characters, we can say that the other groups of dialects are about as far from Mandarin and from each other as, say, Dutch or Low German is from English, or Spanish from French. On the whole, the differences among different groups of Chinese dialects are less radical than the difference between English and German. Speakers of different groups of Mandarin, say a native of Harbin or Mukden, a native of Urumchi in Sinkiang, a native of Chungking or Kweilin, and a native of Nanking — these representatives from the four corners of China can converse freely, each in his own dialect, without attempting too much mutual adjustment. Among speakers of non-Mandarin dialects, ignorance of Mandarin is not so much felt as a personal shortcoming as a practical inconvenience for travelers and people in educational or public work. Most educated persons acquire a Mandarin of sorts either by "picking it u p " from people who speak — or have learned to speak — Mandarin, or merely by adopting the vocabulary of Mandarin novels like the Dream of the Red Chamber without attempting any readjustment in pronunciation. Among people in public life, linguistic difficulties arising from dialect differences have been relatively negligible. For the common people, with their limited base of vocabulary and limited contact with other habits of diction and articulation, it would of course be impossible to communicate orally across the boundaries of dialect groups, or even of subgroups. 6. Dialects, Mandarin, and Wenli. — Dialects differ from one another in three respects. The most important difference is that of pronunciation. Thus, the same root which means 'woods' is pronounced lin in Peiping, ling in Shanghai, and lam in Cantonese. Secondly, dialects differ in the choice of words for common use. Thus, the word for 'he, she,' etc. is ta in Mandarin, yi in the Shanghai dialect, and ghöe in Cantonese. Out of these three distinct words from the common stock of the Chinese language, some dialects choose one and other dialects choose another as the favorite form for ordinary use, leaving the others as obsolete or literary words. Thirdly, dialects differ in grammar. Thus, in Peiping, one uses the word-order 'give me some water,' while in Canton and Shanghai one says something like 'give some water me.' This third aspect is the least important, as there is comparatively great uniformity of grammar among the dialects. (60th anniversary publication of Shun Pao), 2nd edition, Shanghai, 1934, Map 12; and F. K. Li, Languages and Dialects, in The Chinese Year Book, 1938-1939 issue, Shanghai, 1939, pp. 43-51.

8

INTRODUCTION

Mandarin, in the narrow sense, is simply the dialect of Peiping and, like other dialects, has its phonetic system, its common vocabulary for ordinary speech, and its grammatical structure. The thing that is peculiar about Mandarin is that it is less peculiar than the other dialects. For, as we have seen, it belongs to a type of dialect which varies the least from place to place and is spoken and understood by the greatest number of people in China. Over and above all the dialects, or, more accurately, included as a part of every dialect — there is a literary language called wenli4 by Western writers on Chinese. Wenli is not an additional dialect, for it has no pronunciation of its own. The same sentence in wenli has as many ways of pronunciation as there are dialects. To be sure, a direct quotation in the Analects of Confucius must have been pronounced in one particular way in a dialect of Lu in the sixth century B.C. But what concerns us is the fact that the Analects as a currently read book of a still living, if not spoken, idiom exists in the collection of meaningful sounds in the mouths of literate persons of all dialects. The fact that there is one and the same system of characters throughout China has certainly played a major part in the preservation of wenli, but the nature of existence of wenli is not in the writing as such, but in the understanding, reading aloud, learning by rote, quoting, and free use of this common idiom, though its actual linguistic embodiment in audible form varies from dialect to dialect. In the terminology of class logic, wenli is a class of certain cognate portions of dialects, and every word in wenli is a class of cognate words in the dialects, usually written with the same character. From this we can draw two corollaries. One is that it is possible to reach the whole of Chinese literature through the medium of any one of the major dialects. The other is that a thorough schooling in one dialect is an introduction to the whole Chinese language. 7. Vernacular Literature and the Literary Revolution. — The vast body of Chinese literature is in wenli. Much writing of today, especially for business and official purposes, is in the same form. Writing in the colloquial style, whether in the standard Mandarin or in any other dialect, has never been done on nearly so large a scale as in wenli. The amount of existing colloquial literature in the dialects is negligible. Mandarin colloquial texts exist in the form of Buddhist lectures of the 9th century, some philosophical works of the Sung dynasty (960-1278), and a comparatively small number of plays and novels from the Yuan dynasty on (since 1277). An even more insignificant amount of literature exists for other dialects such as Cantonese and the Soochow dialect. 4 The term wenli should best be regarded as an English word derived from Chinese roots. In Chinese, wenlii means the literary quality or structure of an essay, while the literary^idiom is usually called wenyan.

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

9

Since the Literary Revolution or the Vernacular Literature Movement of 1917 led by Hu Shih, the use of the Mandarin colloquial in writing has spread greatly. But, in the characteristic manner of revolutionary movements, the first articles advocating the use of the colloquial were written in the literary language, and the leaders continued, and many of them continue, to correspond in the literary language long after they had begun to write articles in the colloquial.6 As things stand now, the movement has penetrated most deeply in the field of literature. Novels and plays, which formerly had to be read furtively from inside half-open drawers, are now placed on the top of classroom desks as part of courses in literature. (See Lesson 23.) New novels and plays, and to a less extent poetry, are written in the colloquial idiom. More than half of the publications on scientific subjects and translations of foreign books are in the colloquial. In the schools, the colloquial is taught through the sixth grade, and wenli is taught only from the seventh grade, or junior middle school, on. It is in the government, in business, and in the non-academic professions that the change has been slowest, due in part no doubt to the difficulty of disturbing well-established phraseology and familiar conventional forms. A paradoxical result of this is that while news despatches, official notices, and even advertisements are in the literary idiom, the so-called literary section and frequently the editorial section of newspapers are in the colloquial. In increasing degrees, however, the written colloquial has come to stay. 8. Unification of the National Language. — Parallel with the Vernacular Literature Movement, there has been a movement towards the unification of the National Language. We have seen that there is already a great degree of underlying unity in the whole language and a still greater degree of practical unity in the second dialect-zone. Since the Revolution of 1911, when China became a republic, there has been a conscious movement to unify the spoken language of the nation. A Society for the Unification of Pronunciation was formed under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, later reorganized under the Ministry as the Committee on the Unification of the National Language. A system of 39 National Phonetic Letters, or juh'in tzyhmuu6 ίί ^ was devised, a standard of pronunciation based mainly on the Peiping dialect was fixed in 1919 (revised in 1932 in the 6 Hu Shih fired the first shot with his letter to the editor of Hsin ch'ing-nien, Vol. 2, No. 2, October 1,1916. The letter was later expanded to an article ^ f c ^ & J s i ί ν ϋ Ι (A Program for Literary Reform) in the same periodical, Vol. 2, No. 5, January 1, 1917. Both the letter and the article were written in respectable wenli and proposed modestly among other things "not to avoid vernacular characters or vernacular words." It was not until Vol. 4, No. 1, January 15, 1918, that articles in the colloquial began to appear in this revolutionary periodical. The case was quite like that of Dante writing his De Vulgari Eloquentia in Latin while trying to establish Italian as a literary medium. β Later changed to 40, then to 37, and called juh'in fwuhaw Ü f Μ 'phonetic symbols.'

10

INTRODUCTION

direction of still closer approach to the pure dialect of Peiping), and machinery was set up to train teachers to teach the National Language — or Gwoyeu, as Mandarin is now called — in the schools. I n 1937, shortly before the war, the government subsidized the four largest publishers in t h e country in the manufacture of type matrixes in which each character is cast in one block with the pronunciation indicated on the right-hand side, and ordered all textbooks through the sixth grade henceforth to be printed in such type, so t h a t all reading matter could be self-pronouncing. While originally chief emphasis was laid on the unification of pronunciation, two other developments have assumed increasing importance as time goes on. 9. Learning-to-Read Movement. — One recent development is a learning-to-read movement, making use of the National Phonetic Letters now available on the side of the characters. Theoretically, the combination should help the spread of standard pronunciation, which it does to a certain extent. B u t in general, the result is not exactly what the promoters expected. Since it is difficult to teach and learn Mandarin with a perfect pronunciation, the National Phonetic Letters themselves are pronounced with a high degree of local accent. Instead of being harmful, however, this natural practice actually helps the reader to understand the meaning of a character, since it is nearer, in the shade of sound, if not in classification, to the dialect of the learner. I t is as if in learning the Chinese word fey ' expense,' an English-speaking student were permitted to pronounce it something like 'fee,' thus reminding one of the English word of similar meaning — the only difference being t h a t , in the case of Chinese, the words written with identical characters are real cognates. The phonetically unsatisfactory result is therefore educationally highly useful. 10. Romanization Movement. — The other development is the movement for adopting an alphabetic form of writing. Systems of simplified writing and stenography based on sound had been devised long before the appearance of the National Phonetic Letters. Missionaries have used various romanized texts in various dialects. A curious circumstance about the adoption of the National Phonetic Letters throws some light on how people looked at the problem a t t h a t time. When the Committee on Unification submitted its final report to the Minister of Education F u Tseng-hsiang, he hesitated about giving official sanction to those curious characters t h a t looked like Japanese katakana. Then one day a member of the Committee arranged to have an otherwise illiterate maid read before the minister a newspaper printed in the National Phonetic Letters. H e was so impressed with the performance t h a t he straightway ordered the adoption of the system. However, as it turned out, his interest proved to be only transitory and the system of the National Phonetic Letters was relegated to the secondary function of indicating the pronunciation of

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

11

characters rather than serving as an alphabet. There were and still are many technical difficulties as well as social and political hurdles to be surmounted before any form of alphabet can be used as a general means of writing. 11. Systems of Romanization: National Romanization. — The transcription of Chinese sounds in the Latin alphabet is as old as the meeting of the East and West. The earliest known systematic form of spelling was that of Matteo Ricci (1552-1610),7 which represented the Mandarin of around 1600. Extensive use of romanized texts did not come until comparatively recently, when the Christian Bible, translated into various dialects in romanized form, began to be taught by missionaries. In 1928, the system of Gwoyeu Romatzyh (G. R.), or National Romanization 8 was adopted by the government and incorporated in the revised standard of pronunciation, side by side with the National Phonetic Letters, in the official dictionary Gwoin Charngyonq Tzyhhuey of 1932. This is theoretically a system of transcription to be used only when Chinese names or words are mentioned in a foreign text or in public signs for foreigners (though in practice most government departments themselves follow the usage of foreigners in China by using the Wade system of romanization for most purposes). Actually, it has been regarded and used as a system of writing by promoters of the Romanization Movement. The distinctive feature of National Romanization is that it spells syllables in different tones with different letters, instead of with diacritical marks or figures,9 as mai (high rising tone) ' to bury': mae (low rising tone) ' to buy': may (falling tone) 'to sell'; or shau 'to burn': shao 'few, little': shaw 'youthful'. This makes the spelling more complicated, but gives an individuality to the physiognomy of words, with which it is possible to associate meaning in a way not possible in the case of forms with tone-signs added as an afterthought. It is not necessary for a foreigner or a Chinese who wishes to learn the standard dialect to decide on the possibility or desirability of writing Chinese in the Latin alphabet instead of in characters. But as an instrument of teaching, tonal spelling has proved in practice to be a most powerful aid in enabling the student to grasp the material with precision and clearness. It is for this reason that National Romanization has been adopted in this course. 12. Dragunov's System of Latinization: Latinxua. — A system of romanization devised by A. Dragunov for teaching the Chinese in Russia 7 See Lo Ch'ang-p'ei, Contributions by the Jesuits to Chinese Phonology (in Chinese), Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica, 1.3.269 (1930). 8 See W. Simon, The New Official Chinese Latin Script, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, London, 1942. 8 Without disclaiming responsibility, as a very active member of the Committee on Unification, for the merits and defects of the system, I must give credit to my colleague Lin Yutang for the idea of varying the spelling to indicate difference in tone.

12

INTRODUCTION

to read has been popular among the Chinese Communists under the name of Latinxua or Latinization. T h e system does not distinguish tones except ad hoc for a few words. There has been considerable controversy between advocates of National Romanization and those of Latinxua, sometimes with quite irrelevant arguments. T h e former call Latinxua a communistic system, as if a system of transcription were capable of having an ideology. Advocates of Latinxua, on the other hand, have called National Romanization a tool of the bourgeoisie because it differentiates tones and the use of tonal patterns is a feature of bourgeois poetry. B y the same reasoning, since bourgeois poets also make use of alliteration and assonance, a proletarian system of spelling would also have to do without consonants and vowels! T h e value of either system obviously cannot be established on the basis of such arguments. T h e greatest difficulty with a toneless orthography like Latinxua is t h a t it does not write the language. Given a set of certain word-forming elements in a language — consonants, vowels, and tones — the natural style of a person's speech is the result of an equilibrium between conciseness and verbosity automatically arrived at under the opposing demands of economy and auditory intelligibility. An orthography t h a t writes less t h a n all the word-forming elements disturbs this equilibrium and creates a dilemma for both writer and reader. If a writer uses his normal style, he will leave the reader to uncertain guessing; if he tries to compensate for the loss in distinctiveness b y the use of a padded, wordy style, the result will be a kind of language t h a t no one normally speaks or writes. T o be sure, given enough context or the situation, much m a y be guessed from an under-differentiated orthography without padding, just as mumbled speech or even a grunt can often be understood. A sentence l i k e : ' Aw want aw glawss awf called w a t a w ' is quite intelligible whether heard or read, although it dispenses with distinctions of vowel quality. B u t if all English vowels were like ' a w ' in 'awl,' m a n y things said in a normal way would not be intelligible. 'This is called w a t e r ' would then not be distinguishable f r o m : ' T h i s is cold water.' W h a t the advocates of Latinxua do and advise others to do is to "blow u p " their style to greater verbosity and make it a habit to write things like: 'This-here is-being ice-called water,' where the reader would then not depend upon vowel-distinction for intelligibility. Another difficulty with any under-differentiated orthography is t h a t the native speaker of a language cannot be dissuaded or prohibited from making use of all the word-forming elements which are already in the language. N o Chinese can feel t h a t he is talking Chinese unless he talks with tones. H e may be trained to write in a very wordy style, or to write without tones, b u t he cannot be educated out of speaking or reading with tones. Consequently, he will be able to read words written in a toneless romanization

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

13

only when they remind him of words he already knows, with tone and all. When confronted with words outside his vocabulary, he will be quite unable to say them in a Chinese way. Using again an analogy with English vowels, let us suppose that 'cold,' 'called,' and 'culled' were all written 'c'ld.' Then a person will readily supply the suitable vowel in 'c'ld' when he reads: 'It's very c'ld outside,' or: 'Mrs. Jones just c'ld up.' But if his vocabulary does not already contain the word 'culled,' he would not be able to say the word ' c'ld' at all in a sentence like: ' These flowers were c'ld from his garden,' even though he may guess its meaning correctly. In other words, it would be impossible to learn new words from reading, which would be a fatal defect for a system of alphabetic writing, especially for educational purposes. The upshot of all this is that the toneless system of romanization known as Latinxua, popular as it is in many quarters, is very artificial in style and limited in functions. No good communist, or monarchist for that matter, would want a form of writing which makes reading a guessing game. Any patriot would want a system that gives all the constituents of words. It should be made clear, however, that the majority of Chinese, whatever their ideologies are, are not much concerned with latinization or romanization and carry on their daily life of reading and writing in the good old characters, which 'everybody,' — alas, not everybody! — knows. 13. Romanization of Wenli. — The average style of speech, as we have seen, is the result of an equilibrium between economy and intelligibility relative to the sounds (including tones) of the language. Now some dialects have more sounds to a syllable and a greater variety of syllables than others. Does it then take fewer syllables for some dialects than for others to say the same thing? On this point, S. W. Williams 10 has given a very suggestive answer in a comparative table of the translations of a literary text into nine dialects. There is a decided trend toward greater verbosity in the northern dialects, which are poorer in sounds, than in the southern dialects. In other words, the smaller the variety of syllables, the greater the number of syllables it takes to say the same thing. This is no surprise, since it is a case of the general symbolic principle that the size of complex symbols increases with the decrease in the variety of elements. For example, it takes two figures ' 16' to write the number sixteen on the usual base of ten, but five figures ' 10000' on the base of two; or, again, it takes longer to send a message in the Morse code than by teletype, as the code has only the three elements of dots, dashes, and pauses. Now what about wenli or the literary style, which as we said is pronounced in as many ways as there are dialects? What is its state of equilibrium? The answer is that since wenli is not usually spoken except in the form of cliches, it has no equilibrium of auditory intelligibility. Since wenli 10

S. W. Williams' Syllabic Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1909, X X X V I - X L V I I .

14

INTRODUCTION

was very close to, if not quite identical with, the speech of ancient times, it attained its equilibrium on the basis of a system of pronunciation much richer in sounds, and therefore much more economical of syllables, than any of the modern dialects. To be sure, there are many styles of wenli typical of different ages, and so all are not alike in conciseness or diffuseness. But they are all more concise than the colloquial style of any modern dialect. While Mandarin has about 1,300 different syllables (counting tones), Cantonese has about 1,800. That is why it is usually easier for speakers of Cantonese to identify by sound a literary word than for speakers of Mandarin. But even Cantonese contains too few varieties of sounds for it to come to an equilibrium of auditory intelligibility at the level of conciseness of wenli; for the Ancient Chinese of 600 A.D., as represented in the dictionary Kuang-yün, 1007 A.D., had as many as 3,877 syllables. Here, then, is the chief objection to any all-purpose alphabetic writing for Chinese, namely, the fact that one cannot write wenli in it, and any abolition of the characters would mean the drastic cutting off of China's cultural heritage, most of which is in wenli. I t is all very well to say that the literature of the future will be in the colloquial and therefore intelligible in romanized writing. But as for existing literature, it would be a superhuman job, if at all possible, to translate all of it into the colloquial in order to make it legible in alphabetic form. 14. Interdialectal Romanization. — To answer this objection, two Jesuit priests of Szepingkai, Liaoning, Fathers Henri Lamasse and Ernest Jasmin, devised a system of interdialectal romanization,11 which, representing the Ancient Chinese of about 600 A.D., as reconstructed by Bernhard Karlgren, is intended to be an orthography in which both wenli and the colloquial can be written. In addition, the same romanization can be pronounced in any dialect by a set of rules of pronunciation for each dialect. I t is as if the one orthography 'light' were to be used to cover both English and German, with a rule stating that 'igh' is to be pronounced [ai] in English and [ig] in German, so that the form 'light' is [lait] in English and [ligt] in German. The idea is certainly very attractive, though the actual orthography could be made to look less forbidding and the system made more practical if it followed less mechanically Karlgren's reconstruction of Ancient Chinese and took as its basis a later stage of the language (which it does to a slight extent). The forms could still be distinguished and yet approximate much more closely those of the modern dialects. 15. Basic Chinese. — Another trend in the movement toward the simplification of Chinese writing is the attempt to reduce the number of characters. The leader of the Mass Education Movement, Yen Yang-ch'u (James Y. C. Yen) selected, on the basis of frequency, about 1200 charac11

La romanisation interdialectique, ecriture alphabetique naturelle et pratique de la langue chinoise, Peiping, 1934.

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

15

ters and had texts on elementary subjects composed to teach the illiterate. Somewhat different lists were drawn up for city dwellers and farmers, since the things they would have most frequent occasion to read or write about would be different. Since it is economically advantageous for the illiterate to know as many characters as possible, the plan calls for the teaching of more characters after the first thousand are mastered. The reform is therefore not so much of the writing as of teaching methods. A more reformist attitude was taken by the dramatist Hung Shen when he proposed a list of 1,100 Basic Characters.12 Like the word list of Basic English, it is not based on frequency as such, though rare words are in general not likely to be useful or necessary, but is designed with a view to flexibility in combination and sufficiency for general use. Since, however, a character represents a monosyllable and a monosyllable is rather less than a syntactical word (see p. 33), the list of 1,100 units allows much greater freedom of combination than the word list in Basic English. The result is that the language written within the limits of this list is much nearer normal Chinese and gives much less impression of a special style than is the case with Basic English. Hung Shen can write, as he does in his explanatory book, much more natural Chinese than C. K. Ogden can write English with his list of 850 words, or, from another point of view, Hung could afford to use a somewhat shorter list and still have as much freedom of style as Basic English. Besides the pedagogical and the reformist approach, there is a linguistic sense in which the idea of Basic Chinese characters can be conceived. In the dictionary Kuang-yün of 1007 A.D. mentioned above, there are 3,877 different syllables under which are listed 26,194 different characters, or about 7 characters to each syllable. In the K'ang-hsi Dictionary of 1716, which continues to be widely used today, and in which the pronunciation is still based on that of 600 A.D., there are 40,545 characters, or more than 10 characters to each syllable. How then can Lamasse and Jasmin claim that their system of Interdialectal Romanization based on Ancient Chinese is distinctive enough for writing literary Chinese and transcribing all Chinese literature, if each romanized syllable stands ambiguously for any one of the 10 different characters? The answer is that there are not really 40,545 different words in the language; there were not nearly as many words, even in the language of 600 A.D., as represented in the 3,877-syllable Kuang-yün. Homonyms of the 'can ('able')-can ('tin')' type there were, but not anywhere near ten different words to a syllable. The multiplication of characters was a development in the direction of purely graphic differentiation. In the time of the great classics, say the 4th or 3rd century B.C. (see Lesson 22), there was much use of characters in their simple primary forms and — Ψ — W i S Ä ^ ^ ^ i f e ^ f ö / f l ö i (Method of Teaching and Using 1,100 Basic Characters), Shanghai, 1st ed., 1935, 2nd ed , 1936.

16

INTRODUCTION

free interchange of characters of the same pronunciation. But the characters developed more and more in the direction of semantic differentiation. If, let us say, the English word pronounced [mien] were written man 'human being,' mann 'a male human being,' gman 'to operate (a gun),' kman 'mankind,' hman 'husband,' etc., all pronounced like 'man,' then the situation would be more like the Chinese practice of writing the same spoken word by a variety of characters. (See p. 61 on enlarged characters.) If, on the other hand, the Chinese system of writing were such that each spoken word were written by one and the same character, instead of a set of characters according to extensions of meaning, then it would be more like the English practice of always writing 'man' for the same spoken word ' man,' irrespective of differences in meaning. The list of characters synthesized and differentiated on this principle would then form a set of Basic Chinese Characters in the linguistic sense. It is true that divergences of ancient dialects, semantic changes and irregularity of phonetic correspondences among modern dialects arising from mutual borrowing and other factors of time and place will complicate the picture. Of the 3,877 syllables of Kuang-yün, many are probably obsolete; others, however, stand for homonyms or different words (not only different characters) with the same pronunciation. On the other hand, new differentiations of meaning associated with new differentiations of pronunciation will have to be reckoned as new words. As a subjective estimate, I should say that some 3,500 Basic Characters, representing as many words, pronounced with some 3,000 syllables of Ancient Chinese (as of 600 A.D.) would probably be a fair representation of the content of the Chinese language. Such a list would be of importance from the pedagogical and the reformer's point of view, precisely because it would be based on a representation of the language as a whole without limitation of style, and not on criteria of easy versus difficult characters, necessary versus unnecessary words, standard versus substandard pronunciation, or colloquial versus literary idiom. Basic writing will then be writing based on the language. 16. Recommendations to the Occidental Student. — While the various divergent and confluent currents described above are the chief concern of forward-looking Chinese, they are naturally of only passing interest to foreigners watching from the shores. The problem which an Occidental student of Chinese has to face first is to learn what the language and writing are and not what they might better be. He has no business to ask the Chinese to use fewer characters, but should try to learn as many characters as possible. If a character has a printed form and a different written form and both are commonly met with, he will just have to learn both. If he learns the pure Peiping dialect and his interlocutor has a Chungking accent, he will have to learn to attune his ears accordingly (see Lesson 18). Here,

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

17

again, the most practical point of view is the scientific, empirical one of learning about what is. In the matter of romanization, it would be well if one system could be used for all purposes. But unfortunately it will not be possible unless and until any national system is not only adopted, but actually widely used in China. As things stand, it is quite impossible to make any one system answer all purposes. In a pamphlet on The Romanization of Chinese, London, 1928, Bernhard Karlgren says that at least three different systems are needed: A. a philological system for scientific language study; B. a Sinological system for writers in English on Chinese subjects; and C. a popular system to be used only by the Chinese themselves in creating a new colloquial literature. There is little difficulty in connection with Type A, since every phonetician has, and usually asserts, the right to his own system. Type Β is the system needed by the great number of people who hav occasion to cite Chinese words and names when writing in English, but do not plan to learn the language practically or study it scientifically. They would want to have some procedure to follow in writing Chinese words "in English." For this purpose, the Wade system 13 is at present the most widely used among writers in English. Certain exceptions, however, are usually made. In the first place, there are the numerous irregular forms which have already been too well-established to be changed, such as kowtow, kumquat, Confucius, Chiang Kai-shek, etc., and which could not be recognized if regularized in the Wade system as k'ou*-t'ou2, chinl-chü2, K'ung3ful-tzu3, Chiang3 ChieW-shih2, etc. Another important group of exceptions is found in place names. For example, the 1936 edition of the Postal Atlas, published by the Directorate General of Posts of the Ministry of Communications, follows the Wade system for most names of small places, but a different system for the names of the provinces (see Lesson 16) and some of the larger cities, and still other systems in some of the names of places in the coastal provinces. The only practical procedure, then, for those who write in English on Chinese subjects is to follow the Wade system 14 in general, the Postal Atlas for place names, and common usage for the wellestablished irregular forms. Under Type B, Karlgren includes also the romanization to be used in 13 First used by Sir Thomas Francis Wade in Η sin ching lu, or, Book of Experiments; being the First of a Series of Contributions to the Study of Chinese, Hongkong, 1859, later revised and incorporated in his Yü-yen tzu-erh chi, London, 1867, 3rd ed., 1903. The form now currently used is really the Wade-Giles system, as represented in Herbert Giles, Chinese-English Dictionary, 2nd ed., London & Shanghai, 1912. 14 Many publications, for example The Far Eastern Quarterly, omit the circumflex over e and the breve over u. This results in no syllabic ambiguity. The newspaper practice of omitting all diacritical marks, however, is not recommended.

18

INTRODUCTION

textbooks. As we shall see later (Chapter V), it is essential for a foreigner to use some form of extended romanized text in order to acquire and retain precision in the first stages of his study. For this purpose, the Wade system could, theoretically, be used. But in practice, the constant addition of the necessary diacritical marks and tonal figures makes words and sentences so confusing to the eye that it is not only extremely wasteful of effort, but usually results in the student's inability to gain any clear idea of the sounds of words or to make sure connections between sound and meaning. There are any number of possible systems of romanization which would answer the purpose of a running text without the pedagogically fatal features of the Wade system. For teaching Mandarin, Walter Simon has chosen National Romanization for his Chinese Sentence Series, London, 1942, not because it was planned as a Type C romanization by the Chinese (the government has never sanctioned it as a system of alphabetic writing), but because it does something which has to be done but cannot be done by the Wade system. Whether this form of romanization is of Type Β or of Type C does not matter. We are using it here because some such orthography is necessary for getting a firm grasp of the language. With this understanding, we are now ready to take up the sounds of Gwoyeu and Gwoyeu Romatzyh.

CHAPTER II PRONUNCIATION AND ROMANIZATION This is a descriptive chapter, of which the contents are to be practiced in Lessons A, B, C, D in Part II. The student is not expected to gain a working knowledge of the sounds until he comes to those lessons, but should memorize the tables in this chapter which are marked "Memorize!" 1. Initials. — A syllable in Chinese is made of three constituents: the initial, the final, and the tone. For example, in Hang 'cool,' I- is the initial, -4ang the final, and a high-rising pitch pattern over the whole syllable 1 is the tone. The initials of Mandarin are given in Table l, 2 which should be committed to memory in the arrangement given. Before going further, it is absolutely essential for the student not only to memorize what initials there are, but also be able to reproduce them in writing, with every initial in the right row and column. The encouraging fact about these sound tables is that they are quite exhaustive. If one sees no gr- or zbl- in the table of initials, then one can be sure that syllables like gru and zbla cannot be Chinese. T A B L E 1.

Manner Place

INITIALS

(Memorize!)

Unaspirated Aspirated Voiced stops stops Nasals Fricatives Continuants

Labials

b

Ρ

m

Dental stops, nasal, and lateral

d

t

η

Dental sibilants

tz

ts

s

j

ch

sh

Palatals ("j,")

j

ch

sh

Gutturals

g

k

h

Retroflexes

("j r ")

f 1

r

Ο

2. Place of Articulation. — The rows in the table represent groups with approximately the same places of articulation, and the columns approximately the same manners of articulation. 1

Or over the final, if the initial is voiceless and therefore incapable of having any pitch. For example, the high-rising tone of chwan 'ship' is spread over the final -v;an. 2 For theoretical analyses of Peiping phonemes, see Lawton M. Hartman 3rd, "The Segmental Phonemes of the Peiping Dialect," Language 20.1.28-42 (1944) and Charles F. Hockett, "Peiping Phonology," Journal of American Oriental Society 67.4.253-267 (1947). An important point in which the present system, for purely practical reasons, differs from those of Hartman and Hockett is in the treatment of the palatal initials. 19

20

INTRODUCTION

The first row presents no difficulty. Apart from b, to be described below, the other labials have the same values as in English. The second row: d, t, η, I, has a tongue position slightly more advanced than English dentals, but the difference in shade is negligible. The third row: tz, ts, s has a decidedly forward articulation; the Chinese s, for example, is much nearer French or German s in place of articulation than the average position of English s. The very retracted s of some speakers of English, exaggerated as in ' Thish izh my shishter' is to be avoided. In pronouncing Chinese s, think of th in 'think,' but do not quite make it a real 'lithp.' The next two rows, the retroflexes and the palatals, are very difficult for English-speaking students to distinguish, because the usual English articulation for this type of consonants lies between the two places in the Chinese consonants. The letters j, ch, sh, when not followed by the vowel sounds i or iu (i.e. ii), as well as the letter r, represent sounds made with the tip of the tongue curled back against the roof of the mouth, very near the place of articulation of English consonantal r. On the other hand, when the letters j, ch, sh are followed by the vowel sounds of i or iu, they represent sounds made with the flat part of the tongue — the tip being free — against the palate. It has been found very convenient in class instruction to speak of these two rows of initials as "j," ("jay-are") and " j < " ("jayeye") as reminders of their places of articulation. The student should be warned of a disturbing feature of English habits of articulation in that English j, ch, sh, r are always pronounced with the lips slightly protruded or rounded. In Chinese, whether it is a case of jr or ji, these consonants have no lip action — unless, of course, the vowel following happens to be a rounded vowel, such as u. Practice in front of a mirror and say 'she,' 'cheat,' 'sharp,' then say the same words by keeping the lips back and open, and the result will be near the Chinese sounds of shi, chi, shia. Similarly, say English 'ran' with retracted lips and the result will be like Chinese ran. The last row of initials, the gutturals, present no difficulty. It should be noted, however, that the Mandarin h is not the English glottal h, but a velar, or uvular h. It is like the German ch in ach, but articulated further back and with less friction. The circle at the end of this row represents words beginning with vowels. Only interjections and particles begin with true vowels. Ordinarily, words which we spell with an, en, ou, etc. have three kinds of beginning sound according to the individual. The majority of natives of Peiping pronounce these words with a slight squeeze in the back of the tongue, producing a sound like the rubbing sound used by many Germans in pronouncing the g in läge. A minority of speakers use a glottal stop, and a very small minority a nasal beginning ng-. It will create no misunderstanding or even any impression of a foreign accent if

PRONUNCIATION AND ROMANIZATION

21

the student pronounces words like an 'peace,' enn 'press upon,' oou 'lotus stem' with a pure vowel beginning. But in doing so he should guard against his habit of linking a preceding word ending in -n with such words. Such linking should be studiously avoided. A squeeze at the back of the tongue before the vowel, as in the majority type of pronunciation, will automatically prevent such linking. (See p. 95(h).) 3. Manner of Articulation. — Looking at Table 1 again, now column by column, we shall note that the most important and difficult distinction is that between the first two columns to the left, that between unaspirated and aspirated initials. The unaspirated initials are like those in French 'capital' 3 or English 'spool,' 'stool,' 'school'; the aspirated stops are like those in strongly stressed 'pool,' 'tool,' 'cool.' For getting the aspirated sounds one device is to catch the junction sounds in '\oopho\e,' 'hoi/iouse,' 'it's hot,' 'such /teat,' 'thinfe Tiard.' If, after persistent practice, the student still cannot get the distinction, then he can fall back, as a last resort, upon the following expedient. Let him pronounce the unaspirated column with English (voiced) consonants as in 'big,' 'dog,' 'a(fee,' 'dry,' 'jeep,' 'pay' and pronounce the aspirated column with English voiceless consonants as in 'pool,' 'tool,' etc., paying special attention, however, on the aspiration of is, which most beginners do not aspirate enough. The use of voiced consonants for the first column is not absolutely correct and will give a strong foreign accent. But foreign accent or no foreign accent, the distinction between the aspirated and the unaspirated initials must be maintained at all costs. It affects thousands of words. Of the other three columns, only the initial r- needs comment. The Chinese r differs from English r in two respects. We have already noted that the jr initials are pronounced with no lip action, unless followed by a rounded vowel. The other difference is that it is shorter and has more friction. That is why the Wade system uses the letter j (as in French je) for this sound. However, since the speakers of many Chinese dialects pronounce this sound with no friction, the English pronunciation will result in no "foreign accent" in this respect. But, it should be repeated, special practice must be made with unrounding of the lips, as it involves important word distinctions, such as between raan (no rounding) 'to dye,' and roan (with rounding before rounded vowel) 'soft.' 4. Finals. — Like the initials, all the finals of Mandarin can be exhaustively 4 enumerated in a short list and should be memorized in the regular arrangement of the tables. 3 As spoken by a Frenchman, not as pronounced by most English-speaking teachers of French. 4 Apart from a series of derived words, to be dealt with in section 13 below, and a very few words ending in -m, which we shall take up as we come to them in the lessons.

22

INTRODUCTION TABLE 2.

Medial

Row

Row-a Row-i Row-u Row-iu

Total 37

(Memorize!)

Ending zero

None i u iu

FINALS: BASIC FORM

-i

-u

-n

-ng

-el

y a e ai ei au ou an en ang eng ong el i ia ie iai iau iou ian in iang ing iong u ua uo uai uei uan uen uang ueng iu iue iuan iun 11

5

4

8

8

1

6. Row-a Finals. — Before we describe the phonetic values of the finals, it should be noted that it is much harder to get an idea of vowel qualities from description than in the case of consonants, and listening to a model is therefore even more important here. The first final, which we represent by the letter y, is a vocal prolongation of the preceding consonant. I t has two qualities. (1) After the dental sibilants: tz, ts, s, it has a buzzing quality, like a prolonged ζ in buzz. Thus, the syllable sy sounds like s + vocalized z. After the consonant has been pronounced, the vocalic part — the buzzing part — need not, and usually does not, have much friction, but the tip of the tongue remains behind and near the teeth to give the ε-quality. The lips are open. (2) After the retroflexes: jT, chT, shr, r, this final is pronounced as a vocalized r. Thus, the syllable shy is pronounced like the shr in s/trill. I t is more important here than in the case of tzy, tsy, sy to remember that there is no lip action in y because the English sounds of j, ch, sh, r do involve a protruding or rounding of the lips. (See p. 92.) In Chinese, neither jy, chy, shy, ry, nor tzy, tsy, sy have any lip action. These seven initials are the only ones which combine with the final y. The final a is as in 'father,' with a medium quality. The final e needs special practice. I t is an unrounded back vowel, somewhat like u in 'up' of the so-called "southern accent." I t is usually slightly diphthongized in that it starts close and opens out to end up with the more common variety of u in 'up.' (The vowels in the interjections Eh, Oh, etc. are not included here, as interjections in any language often contain sounds not occurring, or not occurring in usual combinations, in the regular scheme of sounds.) The final ai is as in aisle, with a front a, that is, with a clear, rather than a "broad," quality. The final ei is as in eight, distinctly diphthongized. I t is more open in the 3rd and 4th Tones than in the 1st and 2nd Tones. The final au is as in 'sawerkraut.' The a has a back, that is, a " b r o a d "

PRONUNCIATION AND ROMANIZATION

23

quality. Avoid the type of pronunciation which gives an "a-as-in-at" quality for the first element. The final ou is as in 'SOMI,' also more open in the 3rd and 4th Tones. The final an has a front a, that is, a clear quality, like the so-called "compromise a" in 'demand.' It is between an as in 'cannon' and ahn as in the name 'Hahn,' but nearer the former than the latter. I t is, however, not necessarily short. The final en is that of en in 'omen,' with a neutral quality in the vowel. Special practice should be given to keep the same neutral quality when stressed, since an English-speaking person tends naturally to change it, when stressed, to a different quality — that of e in 'amen.' The final eng is like ung as in sung, but not the very open British variety, which would make the final sound too much like ang. The final ong is pronounced with a very close ο or open u, as in German 'hunger.' The final el is like General American 'err' in the first two tones and between 'err' and 'are' in the other tones. 6. Row-i, Row-u, Row-iu Finals. — The other finals are formed by adding the various medials to the Row-a finals. We shall pass over those which have the same sound except for the addition of the medial and only mention points of special importance. In Row-i, the final i is as in 'police.' The final ie is as in 'yet.' Therefore e in ie has a different quality from that of the final e alone. In the final iou, the ο is very short and weakly articulated in the first two tones. But that it does not quite drop out comes out from the fact that liou and mu do not rhyme, as few and true do in English. In the final ian, a has a quality between 'man' and 'men,' whence the spelling ten in some other systems of transcription. In ir and ing, the vowel is nearer that of i in 'machine' than in 'it.' In all the Row-i finals, if i is followed by another vowel, it has a very open quality (like i in 'it') after the initials b, p, m, d, t, η, I. For example, lian should not be pronounced like French lienne, with a very tightly pronounced i after an almost palatal I, but with a clearly dental I followed by i as in ' i t ' or e. In Row-u, the most difficult final is u itself. Unlike English oo as in 'oodles,' which has a relatively forward articulation (that is, for a back vowel), Chinese u has a very far back articulation, but with the tongue retracted rather than raised. I t is more like the tongue position of aw as in 'awful.' The oo-like quality comes from the very small opening of the lips. To get this quality of the Chinese u, try to whistle the lowest note possible, then vocalize instead of actually whistling. Another device is to imagine holding as much water as possible without either swallowing it or

24

INTRODUCTION

spilling any of it out of the lips. An ordinary oo in 'oodles' will pass with a foreign accent, but a "Southern" oo, which is pronounced with the central part of the tongue raised, cannot be used intelligibly here. The final uo is like wa as in 'water,' but the lips are opened before the sound ends, so that an u/i-sound like ah in 'Noo/i' is heard. After the labials: b, p, m, f , this final is written o, but there is still a trace of u before and also an unrounding at the end. The final uei is like iou in that the e is weakened in the first two tones, but not so weak as to make the final rhyme with i itself. Similarly, the final uen has a weaker e in the first two tones. In Row-iu, the digraph iu represents the vowel sound of u in French 'wsine,' or ü in German 'über.' The Chinese variety has more of an i-quality than an ω-quality. While it is described as a simultaneous pronunciation of i and u, it is easier to produce by saying u first and thrusting the tongue forward for saying i without moving the lips, than the other way around. The final iue rhymes with ie. Of the nasal endings, those occurring after a are more weakly articulated than after other vowels. But in no case is a nasal ending articulated strongly enough to link with a vowel or semi-vowel at the beginning of the next word except particles. Thus in ren'ay 'benevolent,' the tongue avoids touching the front part of the mouth so that no sound like the syllable nay is heard. 7. Tone. — A Chinese word is what it is, not only in having its constituent consonants and vowels, but also in having its constituent tone. The word gai 'ought,' with a high level tone, and the word gay 'to cover,' with identical consonant and vowel, but with a high falling tone, are as different for Chinese speakers as bad and bed for English speakers. Hence the absolute necessity of learning the tone as a part of the word and not as an afterthought. A word pronounced in a wrong tone or inaccurate tone sounds as puzzling as if one said bud in English, meaning 'not good' or 'the thing one sleeps in.' In Mandarin there are four tones for stressed syllables. If the average range of the speaker's voice is divided into four equal intervals separated by five points: 1 low, 2 half-low, 3 middle, 4 half-high, and 5 high, any tone can be fairly well represented by giving its starting and ending pitch, and, in the case of circumflex tones, the turning point. Moreover, if we use a short vertical line as a reference line for ordinates and plot a simplified graph to its left, with time as abscissa and pitch as ordinate, we get a letter-like symbol 6 to represent the tone, as in the last column of the following table: 6

Y. R. Chao, A System of Tone-letters, Le Mattre Phonitique, 1930, p. 24.

PRONUNCIATION AND ROMANIZATION

Tone 1st Tone 2nd Tone 3rd Tone 4th Tone

Description high-level high-rising low-dipping high-falling

Chinese name Inpyng-sheng Yangpyng-sheng Shaangsheng Chiuhsheng

Pitch 55: 35: 214: 51:

25 Graph Ί Ί J Ν

I t should be understood that the actual height and interval of these tones are relative to the sex and voice of the individual, and to the mood of the moment. In general, each of the four steps in the preceding scheme varies between a tone and a tone and a half, so that the total range is somewhere between an augmented fifth and an octave. Needless to say, the pitch of the speaking voice in Chinese, as in a non-tonal language, moves 'portamento instead of jumping discontinuously from one pitch to another, as in music. Consequently, only on instruments with sliding pitch, such as the cello, can one give a fair imitation of Chinese tones, while a keyed instrument cannot remotely approximate any except the 1st Tone of Mandarin. 8. Tone Sandhi. — Tone sandhi is the change in the actual value of tones when syllables are spoken in succession. Next to Cantonese and Southwestern Mandarin, Peiping has the simplest tone sandhi among the major dialects. The following rules cover most ordinary cases: (1) A 3rd-Tone word closely followed by any word except another 3rdTone word is pronounced without its final rise in pitch, resulting in a pure fall from half-low to low, or 21: J . This is the Half 3rd Tone. It does not represent a new class of words, but is the tone in which any 3rd-Tone word will be pronounced under the conditions described. Examples are: 3rd 3rd 3rd 3rd

+ + + +

1st 2nd 4th neutral

J J J J

+ + + +

Ί Ί \l -1

—» —> —» —>

J J J J

Ί Ί \l Ί

hao-shu hao-ren hao-huah Hao .ba!

'good book' 'good man' 'good word' 'All right!'

In each case, the tone of hao, which has the pitch pattern of J when spoken alone, or at the end of a phrase, now has the pitch J ; in other words, it stays low instead of rising. I t should be understood that a native speaker who does not happen to be a phonetician cannot give this tone in isolation. I t has to be caught on the wing. (2) A 3rd-Tone word followed by another 3rd-Tone word is pronounced in the 2nd Tone. Thus, 3rd + 3rd J + J —> Ί J hao leeng 'how cold!' In the romanized text of the first eight lessons we shall mark such a changed 3rd Tone by italicizing the syllable in question.

26

INTRODUCTION

(3) If in a three-syllable word or phrase the first syllable is a 1st or 2nd Tone, the second is a 2nd Tone, and the third syllable is any except the neutral tone (to be described below), then the second syllable (which is in the 2nd Tone) is pronounced in the 1st Tone. An example of this change is dongnan-feng 'southeast wind,' which is lst-2nd-lst, changing to lstlst-lst. For a complete list of possible applications of this rule, including its application in a chain, see Lesson D, pp. 110-113. It should be noted that rule (3) applies only to speech at conversational speed. In very deliberate speech or slow reading, the 2nd Tone is unchanged. (4) When a 4th Tone is followed by a 4th Tone, the first does not fall quite to the bottom, but only to the middle, as: 4th + 4th Μ + Ν —» Ί \ Tzayjiann 'Good bye!' 9. Stress. — Most Chinese dialects have a rhythm similar to that of French, in which syllables succeed one another in a flat-footed fashion, except for enclitic particles. Mandarin, on the other hand, is one of the few Chinese dialects which is a mixture of French rhythm and English rhythm. The majority of syntactic words (p. 33) — the majority from a lexical point of view — have the French rhythm, that is, each syllable of a word is moderately stressed, with the last syllable slightly more stressed than the rest, as ,shiann'tzay 'now,' Ji'tzeel '(hen's) egg,' where the lower bar indicates secondary stress and the upper bar primary stress. When a group has three or four syllables, the last has the loudest stress, the first the next and the inside syllable or syllables have the least stress, as ,hna„sheng'tarng 'peanut candy,' ,shia„shuo„ba'daw 'stuff and nonsense,' where the double bars indicate tertiary stress. A minority of syntactic words — but a majority in frequency of occurrence — have a tonic accent on the first syllable, followed by one or more completely unstressed syllables, as 'mian.hua 'cotton,' 'yii.ba 'tail,' where the dot indicates that the following syllable is completely unstressed. Thus, while mian.hua literally means 'cotton-flower,' the word has the rhythm of the word "cotton.' There are of course variations in stress and rhythm between syntactic words in the sentence. But these do not differ in principle from similar variations in English and need not be described here except for two points. One is that stress for prominence or contrast results in a widening of the pitch range, that is, the high points become higher and the low points lower, so that a 3rd-Tone word, which normally dips down almost to the lower limit of one's voice, tend to be squeezed to a grunting quality of the voice. The other point is that the 4th Tone, which has the widest range of all (from top to bottom), is normally associated with very strong stress in English, as in ' Yes, I do!' It may do for a start to acquire this wide pitch

PRONUNCIATION AND ROMANIZATION

27

range by giving 4th-Tone words an extra stress, but it is better to learn the tone without this aid, as the extra stress will have to be unlearned later and the 4th Tone should be given a wide range even without special stress. 10. The Neutral Tone. — When a syllable is completely unstressed, its tone disappears and is said to be atonic or in the neutral tone. We mark it by placing a dot before the syllable so pronounced. Interjections, however, form a special class in that they are usually atonic but usually stressed. They are usually pronounced with the same pitch as that of an ordinary stressed syllable of a non-tonal language such as English, namely, middle falling or 42: Η for most cases, and rising for expressing doubt, etc. A correct understanding of the neutral tone presupposes a clear distinction between the two following problems. The first problem is, how is a neutral tone actually pronounced when we do have a neutral tone? This is a problem of tone sandhi and can be adequately covered in two or three paragraphs or tables. The pitch of the neutral tone is: Half-low after 1st Tone ta.de Middle after 2nd Tone sheir.de Half-high after 3rd Tone nii.de Low after 4th Tone dah.de

'his' 'whose?' 'your(s)' 'big one(s)'

In the relatively infrequent cases where the neutral tone begins a phrase, its pitch is usually about middle. For the pitch of the neutral tone in three-syllable groups, see Lesson D, pp.110-113. The second of the two problems of the neutral tone is, when does a word have a neutral tone and when does it not? On the whole, words having neutral tones may be divided into grammatical cases and lexical cases, though the two often shade into each other. Interjections, suffixes, pronouns after verbs, reduplicated verbs, and the not-A in A-not-A questions (p. 59) always have the neutral tone. A two-syllable group consisting of verb and object (he-char 'drink tea') never has a neutral tone, except when the whole thing is used as something other than a verb-object construction, as huh.shu 'protect-document,' old term for 'brief case.' As a rule, literary expressions, new terms, and scientific terms do not contain the neutral tone. There remain then the colloquial expressions of old standing, of which some contain the neutral tone and some do not. In our romanized text, all neutral tones are marked with a dot through Lesson 8, after which only lexical neutral tones are marked in the lesson in which a new case is introduced. Some neutral tones are optional, as 'Jeh.jiang or ,Jeh'jiang 'Chekiang.' Only one pronunciation is given in a given place in the running text. In the Vocabulary and Index, optional neutral tone is indicated by a circle before the syllable in question, as Jeh0jiang.

28

INTRODUCTION

11. Neutral Tone and Sound Quality. — Syllables in the neutral tone have certain phonetic features not found in stressed syllables with full tones. An unaspirated initial becomes a true voiced sound. Thus, in ,ba'bae 'eight hundred,' the b in both syllables has the difficult unaspirated voiceless b, but in 'li.ba 'fence,' the b is pronounced like an English b, so that 'li.ba approximately rhymes with 'Reba.' Similarly, in hei .de 'a black one,' penq.jaur 'meet with,' kann.jiann 'see,' wuug 'five,' the d, jT, jr, and g are voiced. The initial tz, however, is not so regularly voiced in neutraltone syllables. The difficult final e, with an unrounded back diphthongized articulation, becomes a simple neutral vowel [a] in the neutral tone, somewhat like a in 'America.' Thus, sou .de (the d becoming voiced) 'something turned sour,' sounds very much like English 'soda.' The vowel a also tends to be pronounced with the neutral quality of a in 'America,' as daa .ta 'strike him,' where .ta sounds like .te, mian.hua 'cotton,' where .hua sounds like .hue or .huo. After a 4th Tone, a neutral tone tends to become voiceless, or whispered, in the following type of syllables: .fu, .Isy, .sy, .chy, .shy, .chu, .chi, .shi, .chiu, .shiu. For example, dow.fu 'bean curd' sounds like dowf; yih.sy 'meaning' like yihs; yaw.shyr 'key' like yawsh; keh.chih 'polite' like kehchi; jinn.chiuh 'go in' like jinnch(iu), with the iu is formed but not vocalized. Our special orthography of sh for the sound of shyh 'be, is' and -tz for .tzy, noun suffix, -j for ~.jy or .je '-ing,' and g for -.geh 'individual, piece,' are, however, only for graphical convenience and have nothing to do with the phenomenon described above. 12. Tonal Spelling.6 — The system of tonal spelling in National Romanization may be presented in two ways. One is to give the rules of orthography. The other is to give the result of the application of the rules in the form of a complete table of all finals in all tones. As it is sometimes easier to remember two sides of the same thing than only one side of it, we shall give the system in both forms. R U L E S OF T O N A L

SPELLING7

1st Tone: (1) Use basic form: ta, shuo, uan, ia. 2nd Tone: (2) Add τ after the vowel for Row-a finals: char, her, hair, pern. 6 Before proceeding, make sure to have memorized Table 2 in order to read this Section more profitably. 7 See also Synopsis at the back of the book.

29

PRONUNCIATION AND ROMANIZATION

(3) In Row-i, Row-u, and Row-iu, change i, u, iu, into y, w, yu respectively: shyang, hvra, chyng, yuan. Note, however, that i and u as complete finals are changed into yi and wu: chyi, hvm, yi, wu. 3rd Tone: (4) Single vowel letters as well as the e in ei and ie, and the ο in ou and uo are doubled: jyy, baa, chiing, geei,

huoo.

(5) Change the medial or the ending i, u and iu into e, o, and eu respectively: jeang, goai, bae, hao,

jeuan.

4th Tone: (6) Change endings zero, -i, -u, -n, -ng, -I, into -h, -y, -w, -nn, -nq, -11 respectively: duh, pay, low, mann, s/tanq, ell. Supplementary rules: (7) Insert h after m, η, I, r for the 1st Tone, as mha, nhie, Zha, rheng, but use basic form for the 2nd Tone, as ma, niang, 1ai, ren. (8) When finals of Row-i, Row-u, and Row-iu occur as words without any initial, write an additional letter y- or w-, as the case may be, for 3rd-Tone words, yeou (as against jeou), woan (as against goan), TABLE 3.

F I N A L S IN A L L T O N E S

(Memorize!)

Ending Row

Tone i

zero a

i

u

1 2 3 4

y yr yy yh

a ar aa ah

e er ee eh

1 2 -3« -4

i yi ii ih

ia ya ea iah

ie ye iee ieh

3 4

yii yih

yea yee yah yeh

1 2 -3 -4

u wu uu uh

ua wa oa uah

3 4

iu

uo 9 wo uoo uoh

wuu woa woo wuh wah woh

ai air ae ay

ei eir eei ey

yai

u

uei wei oei uey

woai woei way wey

η

-ng

-1

ou our oou ow

an arn aan ann

en era een enn

ang arng aang anq

eng erng eeng enq

ong orng oong onq

iau yau eau iaw

iou you eou iow

ian yan ean iann

in yn iin inn

iang yang eang ianq

ing yng iing inq

iong yong eong ionq

yean yann

yii η yinn

yeang yiing y a n q yinq

uan wan oan uann

uen wen oen uenn

uang wang oang uanq

woan wann

woen wenn

woang woeng wanq wenq

yeau yeou yaw yow uai wai oai uay

-

au aur ao aw

1 2 -3 -4

iu yu eu iuh

iue yue eue iueh

iuan iun yuan yun euan eun iuann iunn

3 4

yeu yuh

yeue yueh

yeuan yeu η yuann yunn

el erl eel ell

yeong yonq

ueng

* Rows headed by "-3" and "-4" contain forms to be used in combination with initials only. See Rules (8) and (9). 9 Since the sound of uo after b, p, m, f is spelt ο (p. 24), the tonal forms will be bo, bor, boo, boh, etc.

30

INTRODUCTION

except that the finals -iee and -woo are changed into yee and woo (instead of adding y and w). (9) T h e same finals will have their i - , u - , or i u - changed into y - or w or y u - for 4th-Tone words, as yaw (as against j i a w ) , wey (as against guey), except that y - or w - is added to - i h , - u h , - i n n , - i n q to form yih,

wuh,

yinn,

yinq.

I n memorizing T a b l e 3, note that the four lines for the 1st Tone are the same as the basic finals of T a b l e 2.

13. The Retroflex Finals and the Diminutive Suffix. — There are two

kinds of words with retroflex endings. 10 One is a very small number of primary words, of which the only common words are erl 'child,' erl 'while, moreover,' eel 'ear,' eel ' t h o u ' L , eel ' n e a r ' L , ell 'two.' T h e other class consists of a vast number of monosyllabic words which are morphologically complex in that each is derived from a primary word plus a diminutive suffix (derived, in most cases, from the word erl 'child'). This suffix forms no additional syllable, but gives an r-coloring to the preceding vowel. T h e exact manners in which the preceding sounds are affected are as follows: (1) When the final of the primary word has the ending -4 or -n (in any tone), the ending is replaced b y -I or - e l (like the vowel in General American ' b e r t h ' ) . (2) When the primary word ends in -u or ~-ng, we add -Z in the spelling, b u t the actual pronunciation consists of a retroflexion of au or ou throughout the diphthong, or, in the case of -ng, of a simultaneously retroflexed and nasalized vowel, so that what we write as fengl, for example, is actually pronounced [fS r ]. Note t h a t ing Η — I —> iengl, i.e. [i5 r ]. (3) T h e finals y, i, and iu take the ending -el, thus sy —Z—> sei; j i Η—Ζ —> j i e l ; yu Η—Ζ —> yuel. This applies also to the case when - n drops under (1), e.g. j i n Η — Ζ —> j i —Ζ —> j i e l . (4) T h e vowel ω as a complete final takes - I without an additional vowel, as hwu Η — I —> hwul 'fruit stone' (as against hwen -\—I —> hwel 'soul, ghost'). (5) T h e vowels a and ο take the ending -Z and are pronounced like General American 'art,' 'ordinary.' (6) I n the finals e, ie, uo, iue the vowel is rather prolonged before a retroflex ending, so that ge'l 'song' is not homonymous with gen -|—I —» gel 'root,' nor is luol ' s m a l l m u l e ' homonymous with luen Η — 1 — = > luel 'wheel.' I n the 3rd and 4th Tones, however, the ie, iue derivatives are not distinguished from the i, iu, in, iun derivatives, as can be seen from the blank spaces in the last column of T a b l e 4. This table need not be memorized, as the tonal spelling is based on the same principles as for ordinary syllables. 10 The retroflex ending, which consists of an r-coloring of the preceding vowel is indicated by a final—Ζ (the letter r a t the end of a syllable being a sign for the 2nd Tone).

PRONUNCIATION TABLE 4 .

AND

ROMANIZATION

31

RETROFLEX FINALS IN ALL TONES

Ending Row Tone zero + 1 a

i

u

-ng + 1

1 2 3 4

el* erl eel ell

al arl aal all

e'l* er'l ee'l ehl

aul aurl aol awl

oul ourl ooul owl

angl arngl aangl anql

engl erngl eengl enql

ongl orngl oongl onql

1 2 -3 —4

iel12 yel ieel iell

ial yal eal iall

ie'l12 ye'l

iaul yaul eaul iawl

ioul youl eoul iowl

iangl yangl eangl ianql

iengl yengl ieengl ienql

iongl yongl eongl ionql

3 4

yeel yell

yeal yall

1 2 -3 -4

ul wul uul ull

ual wal oal uall

3 4

iu

-u + 1

1 2 -3 -4 3 4

yeaul yeoul yawl yowl uol wol uool uoll

wuul woal wool wull wall woll iuel* yuel euel iuell

yeangl yeengl yeongl yanql yenql yonql

uel wel oel uell

uangl uengl wangl oangl uanql

woel well

woangl woengl wanql wenql

iual iue'l* yual yue'l eual iuall

yeuel yeual yuell yuall

The meaning of the diminutive suffix is much wider and more varied than the original idea of 'child' or 'smallness,' as can be seen from the various occurrences of this suffix in the lessons. A misunderstanding should be corrected as to the social standing of these derivative forms. The forms given in the lessons represent the normal usage of an educated person from Peiping in an informal conversation. When one is being very formal (as in Lessons 15 and 18) or feels that the listener may be a speaker of some other dialect, he will use a much more bookish style and drop a great many retroflex endings. For getting an accurate knowledge of how * In the finals e'l, er'l, ee'l, ehl,.the vowel is longer and farther back in quality than in el, erl, eel, ell; in the finals ie'l, ye'l and iue'l, yue'l, the vowel is longer and farther front in quality than in iel, yel and iuel, yuel.

32

INTRODUCTION

the language is spoken, therefore, it is much more important to listen to the forms people do use than to ask them what they think they use. In this connection, note also the characteristic fact that the free use of the diminutive ending seems to be a feature of the speech of capitals — Nanking, Hangchow, Chungking, as well as Peiping.

CHAPTER III

GRAMMAR

Since this is a conversational course, grammar is to be learned inductively and the various points will be practiced as they come up in the lessons. In this chapter we shall give a general outline of Chinese grammar for purposes of reference and review. A. WORDS 1 . Morphemes and Syntactic Words. — Chinese scholars recognize two kinds of word-like subunits in speech. The commonest small change of everyday speech is the monosyllable or tzyh. Examples are ren 'man,' yeou 'have,' meei- 'each,' jin- 'this, the present,' -.de, subordinative suffix. It is the kind of thing which a child learns to say, which a teacher teaches children to read and write in school, which a clerk in a telegraph office counts and charges you for, the kind of thing you make slips of the tongue on, and for the right or wrong use of which you are praised or criticized. In short, a tzyh plays the same social part in Chinese life as a word plays in English. For this reason Western Sinologists have called tzyh a "word." But if we analyze the structure of Chinese sentences, we shall find that the syntactic subunits which are capable of being uttered independently or combined with a high degree of freedom are not always monosyllables, but often combinations of two or more syllables. Such syntactic units, whether of one or more syllables, are more like the words in other languages. There is, however, no common Chinese name for them. Chinese grammarians call them tsyr, which is a learned term and not an everyday word. Examples of tsyr are ren 'man,' yeou 'have,' meei-hwei 'each time,' jin.tian 'today,' jy.daw 'know,' idinq 'sure.' On the whole, polysyllabic units of this kind are not quite such close-knit words as 'particular,' 'random,' 'patter,' but more like words of the 'cranberry,' 'teacher,' or 'windmill' type. In the present course we shall speak of either tzyh or tsyr as a word if the reference is obvious, or where it would make no difference; otherwise we shall call tzyh a morpheme1 and tsyr a syntactic word. 2. Free and Bound Words. — A morpheme is a free word when it is also a syntactic word, as hao 'good,' wuh 'fog.' It is a bound word 2 if it must 1 But sec Section 11. Note also that we are using the term " w o r d " in a wider sense than it is usually understood in linguistic usage. 2 Note that a ' bound word' is always bound, but that a ' free word' means only sometimes free. Practically all free words except interjections can be bound to form longer words, as che 'vehicle,' tour 'head,' from which chetour 'locomotive.' 33

34

INTRODUCTION

combine with one or more words (whether bound or free) to form a syntactic word, as jin- 'this,' -nian 'year,' from which the syntactic word jin.nian 'this year' can be formed. In general, a syntactic word corresponds in translation to a word in English, and is usually written as "one word" in our romanized text. But this is only a rough correspondence, as the same Chinese form may have different English translations and vice versa. For example, haokann may be variously translated as 'good to look a t ' or 'good-looking' or 'beautiful,' depending upon the actual sentence in which haokann is used. A free word, when spoken alone, is more likely to be understood than a bound word, when pronounced 3 alone. But whether bound or free, words are rarely used out of context. The understanding of words depends on a number of factors: (1) frequency of the word, (2) absence of homonyms, (3) relative frequency among homonymous words, (4) linguistic context, (5) situational context. Thus, (1) the free word chuay ' t o trample' may not be easy to understand out of context because of its infrequency. (2) The bound word way 'outside' (as in way.tou 'outside') is easily understood because there is no other homonymous word. (3) If one hears yaw, it is likely to be understood as the word yaw ' t o want,' which is by far the most frequent one among homonymous words pronounced yaw. (4) But in a context such as chy-yaw 'take medicine,' yaw will be easily understood as the noun for 'medicine,' while (5) if a nurse holding a bottle says to a patient Yaw, the situational context will also be sufficient to identify it as the word for 'medicine.' B. SENTENCES 3. Full Sentences and Minor Sentences. — Most Chinese sentences are full sentences, that is, sentences with a subject and a predicate, as Woo bu shinn-goei Ί do not believe in ghosts.' Occurring less frequently, but not so infrequently as in English, are minor sentences: some with predicates only, as Bugaushinq chiuh ' (I) don't care to go'; Kee.yii char.char tzyhdean ' (One) can look it up in a dictionary'; Shiah-yeu le ' (It) is raining.' (See also Note 14, p. 192.) As in English, answers to questions and commands or requests form predicate sentences, as Wey sherm buyaw? Inwey buhao 'Why don't you (doesn't he, etc.) want it? Because it's not good'; Chiing tzuoh .ial 'Please sit down!' Interjections are also minor sentences. In a full sentence, the subject and predicate are separated or separable by a pause, or a particle of pause .a, .ne, or .me, between them. For example, Nii tay show 'You are too thin,' or Nii .a, tay show ' (As for) you, (you) are too thin.' When a subject is long, it is usually followed by a pause or a particle of pause. I t is, in fact, a practice in Chinese punctuation 3

Since, by definition, a bound word is never spoken alone.

GRAMMAR

35

to mark off a long subject with the sign which is equivalent to a comma. (For omission of pause, as in Nah.sh 'That's,' see Lesson 2, Note 2, p. 129.) 4. The Meaning of Predication. — The phonetically loose connection between subject and predicate is paralleled by a semantic looseness. In a Chinese sentence, the subject is literally the subject matter and the predicate is just something said about the subject matter. The predicate does not necessarily denote an action or a characteristic of what is denoted by the subject. 4 For example, J eh dih.fangl kee.yii fuh-shoei 'This place can swim, — at this place one can swim'; Woo sh leang-mau chyan ' I am twenty cents, — as for me, the thing I bought was twenty cents.' An important corollary to this is that the direction of action in verbs is to be inferred from the context. Thus, in talking about feeding poultry, Ji bu chy le means 'The chickens are not eating any more,' but as a reply to a host offering more chicken, the same sentence would mean ' (As for) chicken, (I) am not going to eat any more.' Again, Leangg ren tzuoh i-baa yiitz ' Two people sit on one chair': I-baa yiitz tzuoh leangg ren ' One chair seats two people.' In short, there is no distinction of voice in Chinese verbs. On the methods of specifying direction of action, see p. 54. 5. Types of Predicates — (a) Verbal Predicates: The commonest type of predicate is, as in English, one which contains a verb, as Ta yaw .deal jeou.chyan ' H e wants some tips'; Jehyanql shyng 'This way goes, — this way will do.' (b) Substantive Predicates: Woo shaatzf Ί a fool?'; Woo tay.tay An.hueiren ' M y wife (is) a native of Anhwei'; Jiel jieelf Jiel chusan 'What day (is) today? Today (is) the third'; Τa wuu-chyy-bann ' H e (is) five feet and a half'; Woo ba-dean daw .de Ί (am) one who arrived at eight o'clock, — it was at eight o'clock that I arrived.' While the substantive predicate is much more frequent in Chinese than similar forms in English, the commonest way of predicating a substantive expression is to use the verb sh 'be, is,' thus making the whole predicate a verbal one, as Jang San sh ren 'Jang San is a man.' (See, however, preceding section on Ί am twenty cents.') (c) S- Ρ Predicates: A subject-predicate construction can serve as predicate to another subject, as Jeyg ren shin hao 'This man (is such that his) heart is good.' The sentence is synonymous with Jeyg ren .de shin hao 'This man's heart is good,' which is a simple sentence, with one subject, but it is not the same sentence. Other examples are: Woo daw.luh sheng Ί , the roads are unfamiliar, — I don't know my way here'; Woo sheir jy.daw? Ί , who knows?, — how should I know?' (See also Note 50, p. 186.) 1

Much of Chinese poetry should be interpreted in this light. See, for example, the poem 'Mooring by Maple Bridge at Night,' p. 275, but do not follow the English translation too closely.

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INTRODUCTION

There are some predicates which are S - P in origin, but actually used as inseparable syntactic words, as Ν in heen miannshann 'You very facekindly,— your face looks familiar'; Ta tay shinqjyi ' H e is too naturehurry, — he is too quick-tempered,' where the predicate can be preceded by adverbs like bu 'not,' heen 'very,' tay 'too.' In a true S - P predicate, such adverbs must be placed inside, as Ta jih.shinq heen hao 'He, memory very good, — he has a very good memory.' To negate a true S - P predicate either place bu inside or bu.sh ' it is not a case of, not t h a t ' outside, as Ta bu.sh jih.shinq huay ' H e is not memory bad, — not that his memory is bad.' A few S - P predicates take both forms, as Woo tour bu terng .le Ί , head does not ache any more,' or Woo bu tour-terng .le Ί don't head-ache any more.' 6. Types of Subjects. — (a) Substantive Subjects: Substantive expressions form by far the majority type of subjects. Fann hao .le 'Dinner is ready'; Nii shanq naal .chiuh? 'Where are you going?'; Jell leeng 'This place is cold.' A special, frequent type of substantive subject is one ending in .de followed by an adjective as predicate, as Τa shiee .de hao ' H e writes well'; Jeyg hao .de duo 'This is much better.' Apparently the combinations .de hao and .de duo are adverbs 'well' and 'much.' They cannot be, since modifiers in Chinese must precede the modified (Section 8, p. 37). The correct analysis of the sentences is Ta shiee .de (dong.shi, yanqtz, etc.) hao '(The stuff, the manner, etc.) he writes is good'; Jeyg hao .de (dih.fangl, cherng.duh, etc.) duo ' (The respect in which, extent to which, etc.) this is good is much.' (See Lesson 5, Note 20, pp. 153-154.) (b) Verbal Subjects:5 Examples of verbal subjects are: Tzoou shyng, bu tzoou yee shyng ' T o go is all right, not to go is also all right'; Daa sh terng, mah sh ay 'To spank is to be fond of, to scold is to love.' (c) S-P Subjects: Examples of full sentences· as predicates are: Bing bii shoei ching shjen.de ' T h a t ice is lighter than water is true'; Ta bu lai heen hao ' T h a t he is not coming is very good.' 6 (d) Object-Subject: A substantive expression may be the object of a preceding verb and the subject of a following predicate, thus serving as the overlapping part of two telescoped sentences. For example, Woo jiaw .ta lai Ί tell him to come'; Guei sheir fuh-chyan? ' I t ' s up to whom to pay?' The most common case of the object-subject is after the verb yeou 'have,' as Woo yeou g perng.yeou huey chanq-shih Ί have a friend who can sing (musical) plays.' The object-subject is also called a pivot. 6

A verbal subject with a substantive predicate must be very rare if it exists at all. A possible case is Taur tsann.tou 'To run away is coward.' However, since it is possible to say jen tsann.tou, where jen ' really, very' is an adverb, tsann.tou may be regarded as a predicative adjective ' cowardly' here. 6 An actual example of a student's translation of Ί cannot speak Chinese very well' was Woo buneng shuo Jong.gwo-huah heen hao, which would mean 'That I cannot speak Chinese is very good.'

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C. SYNTAX Syntax is the study of constructions in terms of syntactic words. Morphology is the study of syntactic words in terms of their constituent morphemes. Morphemes enter into syntactic relations only in so far as they are free words. Since a free word is defined as a word which can be uttered alone, the question may be raised as to how we can tell whether a word is actually free when used in a sentence. We have already seen that between subject and predicate, a pause or a particle of pause may be inserted. Within a subject or a predicate, syntactic words are capable of being separated by sound of hesitation such as .e— or .eng [r):] ' u h — , e r — , ' .jeyg— .jeyg 'the — t h e — o r , more frequently, by a prolongation of the last vowel (at low pitch after a 3rd Tone and at the ending pitch after other tones). On the other hand, a speaker does not hesitate in the middle of a complex syntactic word in these ways. If a hesitant speaker or a stutterer is put off in the middle of a syntactic word, he begins from the beginning on resumption, as Woo yaw Iii-, Iii-, lii-fah Ί want a hair-, hair-, haircut.' Besides the relation of subject and predicate, which we have already described, we shall consider the following syntactic constructions: 7. Coordination. — Coordination in Chinese is expressed by mere juxtaposition, as Nii woo ta dou lai .le 'You, I, and he have all come'; Jang San Lii Syh sh leangg ren 'Jang San and Lii Syh are two men.' Coordinated items may be separated by pauses or particles for pause, as Jurow, yangrow, niourow, sherm dou mae.bu-jaur 'Pork, mutton, beef — nothing is available.' In the last example, the particle .a or .le can be inserted after each item. In constructions like Nii gen woo dou chiuh 'You and I both go,' the word gen 'follow, with, and' is not a true coordinate conjunction. I t is really a case of verbal expressions in series: 'You, following me, all go.' In yow benn yow shaa 'both stupid and foolish,' yow is an adverb: 'moreover stupid moreover foolish.' It is therefore also a case of coordination by juxtaposition. The A-not-A and disjunctive questions (p. 59) are also coordinate constructions. 8. Subordination. — The simplest rule about subordination (qualification, or modification) is that the modifier precedes the modified, as farngtz .de dieengl 'house's roof, — the roof of the house,' bao-shean .de gongsy 'insure-kind of company, — a company which does insurance business.' (More examples in Note 38, p. 132.) In direct subordination without the interposition of the particle .de, the construction is usually so close as to form one syntactic word, as farngdieengl 'roof,' bair-jyy 'white paper,' buhao 'not good,' baoshean-gongsy 'insurance company.' Such constructions are intermediate between syntactic and morphological. In so far as

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the elements can be free in other constructions, the student should learn them as independent units. 9. Verb-object Constructions. — Like subordinate constructions, verbobject constructions are also usually close-knit units intermediate between a syntactic word and a phrase. In a true verb-object construction, the object is always stressed except when it is a pronoun, which is in the neutral tone unless specially stressed for contrast. When a verb takes a suffix or the object has a modifier, then the result is a phrase. For example, he-shoei 'drink water': Ta he.le i-wan liang-shoei 'He drank a bowl of cold water.' Some verb-object constructions consist of otherwise bound words, except that either the verb or the object may be free when the other word is in a nearby context. For example, in lii-fah 'dress-hair, — to have (or give) a haircut,' Hi in the sense of 'dress (as hair)' and fah 'hair' are not free words elsewhere. But one can ask Niijiel chiuh lii-fah .bu Mi? 'Are you going to have a haircut today?' and the answer can be Lii 'Yes, I am.' Contrast this with Woo shianntzay leu .woo.de tour.fah Ί am now fixing (patting, combing, etc.) my hair,' where leu 'put in order' and tour.fah 'hair' are syntactic words which can be used in any context. Other examples of separation of bound words are fey-shern 'expend-energy, — t o trouble (someone with a request)': Woo fey.le Nm sheuduo shern Ί have expended much of your energy, — I am much obliged to you,' where shern, in this sense, is not otherwise a free word. From analogy with ions in electrolytes, we shall call such words "ionized words." 10. Verbal Expressions in Series. — A very important syntactic construction which has no parallel in English is that of verbal expressions in series. We have already seen that coordination consists of juxtaposition, as Τa tiantial shiee-shinn huey-keh 'He writes letters and receives callers every day.' In a coordinate syntactic construction, the order is usually reversible, as Ta tiantial huey-keh shiee-shinn. But under the term verbal expressions in series, we shall understand verbal expressions in a fixed order. Taking the point of view of the first verbal expression, it has the following principal meanings: (a) First in time: Deeng .i.hoel chiuh 'wait a while (before) going': chiuh deeng .i.hoel 'go wait a while'; Woo chii.lai kann.le i-fell baw Ί got up and read a newspaper': Woo kann.le i-fell baw chiilai Ί read a newspaper and got u p ' ; Na-dau .geei .ta 'Take a knife and give to him.' (b) Condition: Bu nanshow bu ku ' (If one) does not feel bad, (one) does not cry': Bu ku bu nanshow ' (If one) does not cry, (one) does not feel bad.' (c) Place: Daa jell tzoou 'from here go'; li ta tay yeuan 'from him too far'; tzay shoei.lii rheng chyou 'in the water throw a ball (as in playing water polo)'; wann-dong tzoou 'go east go, — go toward the east'; duey .ta fanq-chiang 'facing him fire gun, — fire at him.'

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(d) Manner: Ν a shoou chy dong.shi 'take hand eat things, — eat with the hand'; yonq-shin tzuoh 'use mind do, — do it carefully.' (e) Interest: Tih woo shuo-huah 'substitute me speak, — speak for m e ' ; geei .ta na dau 'give him take knife,—take a knife for him'; Geei .woo goen! 'Give me roll (away), — get out of here!' duey .ta daw-chean 'facing him say apology, — apologize to him.' (f) Comparison: Nii bii ta ae ' You compare him short, — you are shorter than he'; Woo yueh shuey yueh kuenn Ί the more sleep the more sleepy, — the more I sleep the sleepier I am.' (g) Pretransitives: Bae woan tzar.le 'take bowl smashed, — smashed the bowl.' On the uses of this form, see Note 49, p. 162. D. MORPHOLOGY 11. Morphological Processes. — Practically all morphemes are monosyllabic, as ren 'person,' keen ' t o be willing,' duey 'correct.' A very small number of morphemes of obscure etymology or of foreign origin have more than one syllable, as luo.bo 'radish,' ji.gu ' t o grumble,' pwu.sah 'bodhisat,' luojih 'logic.' Although these are written with two characters (and called two tzyh), and often morphologically complex in origin, they are not analyzed, in the spoken language, into further meaningful parts. Morphological processes in Chinese can be considered at the following three levels: reduplication and phonetic modification of one morpheme; affixation;7 and compounding. 12. Reduplication and Phonetic Modification. — Reduplication has a number of functions. The beginning student should only learn two of the most important ones and leave the rest to individual cases as they come up. (1) Any verb of action can be reduplicated, with neutral tone on the repeated verb, with meaning of 'just, once,' German 'einmal, mal,' as tzoou.tzoou 'just walk, — take a walk,' kann.kann 'just look, take a look,' hwa.suann.hwa.suann 'think it over.' Most auxiliary nouns (p. 45 and Note 4, p. 122) and a few nouns can be reduplicated (with no loss of tone), with the meaning of 'every,' a.sjang-jang 'every sheet,' renren 'every man.' A reduplicated verb occasionally takes the suffix -I, as deeng.deengl' wait a little'; a reduplicated AN usually takes the suffix -I, as jang-jangl 'every sheet,' gehgehl 'everyone.' (2) A morpheme adjective or adverb may be reduplicated (the repeated word changing into 1st Tone, if not already in the 1st Tone), usually with addition of the suffix -I and optional addition of .de, the meaning is that of 'liveliness' or 'good and . . . ,' as kuaykual(.de) 'good and fast.' 7 Words with affixes are often called "compounds" by Sinologists because they are written with two or more characters. Some linguists regard reduplication as a form of affixation.

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Each syllable of a two-syllable adjective or adverb may be duplicated, with addition of .de and recovery of stress and tone on the original second syllable, if it was in the neutral tone, the meaning being that of 'intensification,' as huang.jang 'flustered': huang0huangjangjang.de 'helter-skelter.' Terms of direct address as bah.bah 'papa,' mha.mha 'mamma,' and special words, like chiu.chiuel 'cricket,' wa.wa 'doll,' should be learned individually. Thus, from the bound word shing 'star,' we have the syntactic word shing.shing 'star,' but from the bound word yueh 'moon,' there is no yueh.yueh, except in child language. Examples of phonetic modification (including change in tone) are: charng 'long'\jaang 'grow'; Hang 'cool': lianq 'to sun, to dry'; chwan 'to hand on, pass on': juann 'record, biography'; jiann 'to see': shiann 'appear,' etc. Although these are pairs of cognate words (and often written with the same characters), they should, for practical purposes, be learned as separate words. 13. Affixes. — Chinese has few prefixes. The only common ones are dih-, prefix for ordinal numbers, as dih'i 'first,' chu- prefix for the first ten days of the month, as chusan 'the third of the month,' and lao-, prefix before monosyllabic surnames expressing medium familiarity, and for the names of a few animals. Chinese has only a small number of suffixes, but they occur with great frequency. The most important suffixes are: The diminutive suffix - I s (p. 31), which is more often used as a noun suffix than as a suffix expressing smallness, as hwang 'yellow': hwangl 'yolk.' The only verbs with the suffix -I are wal 'to play,' and the very colloquial forms huool .le 'to get mad' and dial .le 'to go, beat it.' Noun suffix -tz (pron. -.tzy), as yiitz 'chair,' wahtz 'sock, stocking.' Noun suffix -.tau, as shyr.tou 'stone,' way.tou 'outside.' Noun suffix ba, limited to a small number of words for physical objects, as yii.ba 'tail,' li.ba 'fence.' Modal suffix -m (or -.me before a pause), as sherm 'what?' tzemm 'so, this way,' nemm 'so, that way,' tzeem 'how?' neem (rare) 'which way?' dwom 'how, to what extent?' Plural ending for pronouns and collective nouns for persons -.men or -m, as ta.men 'they,' hairlz.men 'children (collectively).' Word suffix -.le for completed action, etc., as daa-poh.le 'strike-broken, — smashed.' Phrase suffix .le9 for new situation (Note 36, p. 132), as Fann hao .le 8 This suffix, as well as the - m form of the suffixes -.me and -.men given below, form no additional syllable, although in a character text they are, like other affixes, written with separate characters just like ordinary words. 9 In the dialects and in wenli, the two suffixes are often not homonymous, as they are in Mandarin. Thus, Nii shang.le feng .le 'You have caught a cold' is Nee sheung-cox fong Ihoh in Cantonese and Nong sang-zy fong ze in Shanghai. In wenli the ph as suffix .le is yii and there is no corresponding word suffix.

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'Dinner is ready'; for progress in narration, as Dih'ell-tian ta howhoei .le 'The next day, he regretted it,' etc., etc. Note that when the two suffixes come into juxtaposition, they are telescoped into one, as Nii bae beitz daa-poh.le 'You have broken the cup.' 10 Suffix for progressive action -j (pron. -.jy or -.je), as Woo deengj .nii .ne ' I am waiting for you'; Shuoj huah .ne ' (They) are talking, — the line is busy.' Suffix for possibility or ability -.de, as jih.de ' (can) remember,' renn.de 'can recognize, — acquainted with,' yaw.de 'can be desired, — desirable.' Suffix of subordination -.de, as woo.de mawtz 'my hat,' kuaykual.de pao 'run good and fast.' Infixes are very rare in Chinese. The only common ones occur in conjunction with partial reduplication. They are of the types (1) dingdang 'ding dong': dinglhing-danglhang 'jingling-jangling,' consisting of adding the initial Ih- followed by a reduplication of the two finals -ing and -ang, and (2) hwu.twu 'muddled': hwu.lihwutwu 'fuzzy-wuzzy,' consisting of adding the syllable ~.li after the first syllable of a two-syllable word and then repeating the whole word, with recovered stress and tone on the second syllable, if unstressed.

E. COMPOUNDS 14. Classification of Compounds. — The morphological process of compounding (proper) is so important in Chinese that it deserves a separate main heading. A compound is a syntactic word consisting of two words. Compounds can be classified in a number of ways: (a) A compound may or may not have one of its components in the neutral tone, as lawbiing 'bake-cake, — a large, coarse hot-cake,' but shau.biing 'burn-cake, — a hot biscuit with sesame seeds.' (b) Either one of the components in a compound may be bound or (otherwise) free. Thus law 'bake,' shau 'burn,' and biing 'cake,' are free words, but in shyhbiing 'dried persimmon,' shyh is the bound root morpheme in shyhtz 'persimmon'; in Jonghwa Mingwo 'The Chinese Republic,' Jonghwa is always bound and Mingwo can be free. (c) The components of a compound may or may not be in syntactic relation. Thus, in mae.may 'trade,' mae 'buy' and may 'sell' are in coordinate relation (cf. Mae may dou iyanql jiah.chyan 'Buy or sell same price'); but in daa.shoou 'beat-hand, — a hand hired to beat, — rioter,' daa a transitive verb cannot be used as a modifier without a modifying particle .de. (d) A compound may or may not have the same grammatical function 10

In Cantonese both -cox and Ihoh are kept: Nee tzeung ceak pui0 taa-laann-cox Ihoh.

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INTRODUCTION

of one or both of its constituent words. For example, shau.biing is a kind of biing, but mae.may is a noun, while mae and may are verbs. (e) Either one of the words in a compound may be a morpheme, a derived word, or itself a compound. Thus, in gua-tzeel 'melon-seeds,' tzeel is derived from tzyy -\—I, and in shan.ja-gau 'hawthorn-jelly,' sh.an.ja 'mountain-ja, — hawthorn' is itself a compound. (f) The components of a compound may be a very active word or only used in one or very few compounds. For example, in yeouyih 'intentionally,' both the free word yeou 'have' and the bound word yih 'idea, intention' are very active words, while in ee.shin 'nausea-heart, — nauseated,' ee is rarely used outside of this compound. (g) Finally, some bound words are so active that an unlimited number of transient words can be formed by even a beginning student, others are synthesizable in the sense that a student knowing the meaning of the components can guess correctly at the meaning of the compound, while , still others are lexical in nature and have to be learned as a new word even though its components are already known. Thus, ney-shuang 'that pair,' utz.lii 'in the room' are transient words; feichwan 'flying boat,' haokann 'good-looking' are synthesizable compounds; and bairshuu 'white-potatoes, — sweet potatoes,' yueh.lianq 'moon-bright, — the moon' are lexical compounds. It would of course lead to endless details of cross-classification if we tried to apply all these seven principles together. For our purposes, we shall consider chiefly the syntactic relations, if any, between the components of compounds and note other important features in passing. 15. S-P Compounds. —- In connection with types of predicates (p. 35), we have noted that a true S - P predicate admits insertion of words, while an S - P compound is a frozen unit. Besides serving as predicate, an S - P compound may have other functions. For example, shin.terng 'heart-hurt, — to grudge' in Ta binq bu shin.terng ta.de chyan 'He does not really grudge his money.' 16. Coordinate Compounds (including synonyms and antonyms).— lihhay 'profit-harm, — consideration of advantages and disadvantages,' lih.hay 'fierce,' chyr.tsuenn 'size' ( < chyy 'foot' + tsuenn 'inch'), shichyi 'rare-strange, — strange, to find strange,' tsair.ferng 'cut-sew, — tailor.' Note that syntactic coordination is reversible, though usually one order is more idiomatic than the other, while morphological coordination is fixed in order. In the relatively few cases where both orders are possible, the meanings are usually different, as yawjiin, lit. 'important-urgent' means only 'important,' while jiinyaw, a somewhat more literary word, means 'urgent and important.' 17. Subordinate Compounds. — shinhi 'mind-principle, — psychology,' shin.lii 'mind's inside, — in the mind,' shiaw.huah 'laugh-word, — a joke,

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to laugh at,' sanbae 'three hundred,' nanshow 'hard to take, — can't take it, — uncomfortable, miserable,' masherngl 'hemp-cord.' Localizer compounds form a very important class of subordinate compounds consisting of a noun (or pronoun) followed by a localizer, or a place word, usually in the neutral tone. Thus, juotz .de shanq.tou 'table's upper part,' is a phrase, where shanq.tou is a noun, but juo.shanq 'table-top, — on the table' is a substantive compound with a localizer. In translation, localizers are usually rendered by English prepositions (p. 53 and Lesson 5). Subordinate verb-noun compounds are nouns and not verbs. Examples are: byejel 'pinning-needle, — pin,' jiachyan 'pinch-forceps, — pliers,' fwu.shoou 'support-hand, — bannister, doorknob,' pin.faa 'spell-method, — spelling, orthography,' shoutyaul 'receive-slip, — receipt,' tswenkoan 'deposit-funds, — bank deposit' (cf. § 18 below). Since we are regarding an adjective as a kind of verb, adjective-noun compounds also fall under this heading. Examples are: shiangjiau 'fragrant-banana, — banana,' chow.chorng 'stinking-insect, —bedbug,' hao-ren 'good man,' dahshyy 'great-envoy, — ambassador.' D-AN compounds are subordinate compounds of determinatives and auxiliary nouns, as i-tian 'one day,' jey-kuay 'this piece.' For details, see pp. 45-46. 18. Verb-object Compounds. — Verb-object constructions, as we have seen, are intermediate between syntactic and morphological in nature. The student would do well to treat those cases as compounds when the components have special lexical meanings or when not actually used as verbobject. If the object has full tone, the construction may or may not be a true verb-object construction. For example, tswen-koan means either ' t o deposit money' or 'bank deposit.' But if the object is in the neutral tone, then the compound always has a different function. Examples are: huh.shu 'protect-document, — (old style) brief case,' doong.shyh 'supervise-affairs,— member of a board, trustee,' dean.shin 'dot the heart,— refreshment, breakfast,' jeen.tour 'pillow the head, — a pillow.' 19. Verb-complement Compounds. — The morphological analogue of verbal expressions in series is the verb-complement compound, as Woo chy-bao.le Ί have eaten full, — I have had enough.' While in verbal expressions in series the first verb usually has an object, the first verb in a verb-complement compound never has an object. For example, in Feng gua-dao.le i-suoo farngtz 'The wind blow-toppled a house, — blew down a house,' the object follows the second verb or complement, not after the main verb, as in English 'blow it down.' The meaning of a verb-complement compound is usually that of result, and not so varied as in verbal expressions in series: gua-dao.le 'blow, (with the result) toppled.' The minimum complement is the word suffix -.le, as bae shoei he.le 'take

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water drink (it) up, drink up the water,' the first .le in sha.le ren .le 'have killed (off) somebody.' Directional complements form a very important class of complements, consisting of verbs of motion indicating the direction of action of the preceding verb, as fei.lai 'fly-come, — fly (to) here,' sonq.chiuh 'send-go,—send away.' A verb with a directional complement, such as jinn.lai 'enter-come, — come in,' may itself be used as a directional complement, as sonq.jinn.lai 'send enter-come, — send in (toward the speaker).' A compound complement with -.lai (and less frequently chiuh) is often split by an inserted object, as na.chu i-beel shu .lai 'take out a book.' For further details see Lesson 6, especially Note 28, p. 161. Potential complements form another important special class. We have seen that the suffix -.de as in jih.de 'can remember, — remember,' renn.de 'can recognize, — to be acquainted with,' etc. (not the subordinative suffix -.de as in woo.de 'my') expresses possibility, ability. While this suffix is not very active and verbs ending in it must be learned individually, almost any verb may take this suffix if followed by a complement, which will then be called a potential complement. Thus, although one does not say *na.de for 'can take,' one cay say na.de-shiahlai 'can take down,' with shiahlai 'come down' as potential complement. (See also Note 39, p. 145.) 20. Decompounds and Particles. — A suffix is not only attached to root words but also to compounds or phrases 11 as a whole. For example, weiborl 'muffler' has a different construction from guatzeel 'melon seeds,' for, while tzeel (< tzyy -|—I) is a derived word meaning 'seeds,' there is no such word as *borl. The word weiborl is to be analyzed as wei 'surround' + bor- 'neck' (as in bortz 'neck'), with a noun suffix -I for the whole thing: 'something around the neck, — muffler.' Being apparently a compound but no longer a compound because of the suffix for the whole, it is called a decompound. A particle is a suffix attached to a phrase (or sentence) as a whole. For example, in woojuh .de leugoan Ί live, .de hotel, — the hotel I stay at,' the addition of the subordinative suffix .de to the phrase woo juh makes it a syntactic word. For practical purposes, we shall write such forms, including the suffix, as separate words, just as ' That umbrella is the young lady I go with's' 12 is written without hyphens. This applies also to localizers for phrases, as baw.shanq 'in the newspaper,' but woo jiel mae .de baw .shanq ' I today bought .de newspaper therein, — in the paper I bought today,' with a space before .shanq, which is bound with the preceding phrase as a whole. 11 12

In the wider sense, also including sentences. H. L. Mencken, The American Language, 4th ed., p. 461.

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45

F. PARTS OF SPEECH, ETC. 21. Parts of Speech and Form Classes. — It has often been said that Chinese has no parts of speech, but only functional position in the sentence, and stock examples from the literary style such as jiun jiun ' the king is a king,' ehern chern 'the minister acts as a minister,' fuh fuh 'the father is fatherly,' tzyy tzyy 'the son is filial' are familiar features of the grammatical section of writings on Chinese. While there is a greater range of functional variation for Chinese words than those of most Indo-European languages, if not more than in English, there is still the element of selection which limits the range of variation. Thus, jeou 'wine' is never followed by the suffix for completed action .le; genq 'still more' is never combined with a numeral, nor is taangj 'to be lying down' ever followed by an object. On the other hand, daa 'to beat' is usually followed by a substantive. In other words, we can mark in a dictionary that normally jeou is a noun, genq is an adverb, taangj is an intransitive verb, daa is a transitive verb, etc., etc. For, as a rule, every form does have a limited range of functions, which have to be learned in connection with it. A form, class is a class of forms which have the same grammatical function, such as noun suffixes, transitive verbs, and substantive expressions. A part of speech is a form class whose members are syntactic words. In the present section, we shall consider the parts of speech, together with such form classes of bound forms as will be profitable for the student to learn as separable units. 22. Determinatives and Auxiliary Nouns. — Determinatives consist of numerals and demonstratives, interrogatives, and a few other bound words. They are: numerals from one to ten,jeh- 'this,' nah- 'that,' naa- 'which?' tzeem- 'how?' sherm- 'what?' neem- 'which way?' meei- 'each,' geh- 'the various' (unrelated homonym of the AN -geh), shiah- 'next,' shanq- 'last,' bye- 'other,' jii- 'how many?' bann- 'half a.' Except numerals, determinatives can form syntactic words with suffixes, often with phonetic modification, as naal' where?' neyg (< nah + i + .geh) ' t h a t (one),' tzeem.me 'how?' tzemm.me (< jeh + .me), bye.de 'other, something else.' The most important type of words containing determinatives is one formed by the addition of an auxiliary noun or AN. An auxiliary noun or AN is a bound word forming, when preceded by numerals or certain other determinatives, a substantive compound, which we have called a D - A N compound. There are five classes of AN: (a) AN proper, also called "classifiers," or "numerary adjuncts" (NA). Every word for an individual person or thing has its specific AN, which should be learned in connection with the word. Other examples are i-baa yiitz 'one-handle chair, — a chair,' leang-jaan deng 'two-dish lamps,

46

INTRODUCTION

— two lamps.' There is no corresponding feature in English except such infrequent instances as 'two head of cattle/ 'a copy of the Bible.' The AN -geh (written -g when unstressed) is the commonest AN for individual things and persons. In case of doubt about the specific AN for a noun, it is usually safe to use the general AN -geh, as ig yiitz 'a chair,' leangg deng 'two lamps.' (b) Measure words, like -wann '10,000,' -Iii 'Ii,' doou 'peck,' -chyy 'foot,' -jin 'catty,' as san-doou mii, 'three pecks of rice.' Some writers use the term "measure word" for all classes of AN. (c) Temporary measure words. These are ordinary nouns which are used temporarily as measure words. For example, in i-jian utz 'a room,' utz is a noun, with its own AN -jian 'partition.' But in i-utz ren 'a roomful of people,' utz is used as a temporary measure word, since utz is not a regular unit of measure. Similarly, in i-juotz tsay 'a tableful of dishes,' juotz is a temporary measure word, but in i-juo tsay ' a regular set of dishes forming a dinner for one table,' -juo is a regular measure word. Between a temporary measure word (less frequently, also a regular measure word) and a noun, the subordinative suffix .de is often inserted, as i-dih .de jyy ' a floorful of paper.' (d) AN for verbs, that is, objects of verbs which, together with a preceding numeral, specifies the number of times the action is performed, as shuey i-jiaw 'sleep a sleep, — have a nap,' wenn i-sheng 'ask a voice, —· make an inquiry,' chy jii-koou 'eat several mouthfuls, — have a few bites.' (e) Quasi-AN, consisting of a small number of nouns which can follow determinatives directly but are not associated with ordinary nouns and not themselves regular units of measure, as i-keh 'one lesson,' san-sheeng 'three provinces,' leang-jih 'two seasons.' A D-AN compound can be used either in apposition with a noun, as ig ren, or independently, as Leangg leangg syhg 'Two and two are four.' 23. Nouns, Time and Place Words, and Localizers. — A noun is a syntactic word which can be placed in apposition with a D-AN compound, as ren in jeyg ren 'this man,' shoei in i-bei shoei 'a cup of water,' yan in leang-jin yan (or yan leang-jin in bookkeeping style) 'two catties of salt.' Time and place words are like nouns in being used as subjects or objects, but they do not occur after D-AN compounds.13 For example, Shianntzay jenqhaol 'Now is just right,' Jell sh naal? 'Where is here?' When there are two or three subjects including time and place words, the whole sentence can be regarded as layers of S-P predicates — Chinese-box fashion. The order is free to a certain extent, with preference for the order of actor: 11 In this respect proper names are formally more like time and place words than nouns. From the point of formal logic, pronouns, time and place words, and descriptive phrases of the form "the so-and-so" all have reference to a particular and therefore cannot be further specified by a D-AN compound.

GRAMMAR

47

time: place. For example, Woo jin.tian cherng.lii yeou-shyh 'As for me, as for today, in-town has business, — I have business in town today.' Note that shyr.howl 'time,' dih.fangl 'place,' and similar words are nouns and not time and place words, as ig dih.fangl ' a place.' A localizer is a bound word forming the second component of a subordinate compound, resulting in a time or place word. For details see Note 2, p. 152. 24. Substitutes. — The most important class of substitutes are the personal pronouns nii 'you (sing.),' woo Ί , me,' ta 'he, him, she, her, it,' nii.men 'you (pi.),' woo.men 'we, us,' tzar.men 'we, us,' ta.men 'they, them,' sheir 'who, whom?' (Lesson 1). The suffix -.men is abbreviated to -m before labials, often also before -.de. Woom is often further abbreviated to mm (a syllabic m on the 3rd Tone). Of the two forms of 'we,' woo.men is the exclusive 'we' and tzar.men is the inclusive 'we.' For example, Nii.men sh neu.ren, woo.men sh nan.ren; tzar.men dou.sh ren 'You are women, we are men; we are all people.' (See Notes 17, p. 123 and 29, p. 134, and Figs. 1 and 2, p. 125.) When ta refers to inanimate things, it is usually limited to the object position. Ta.men is not used for inanimate things in any position. Thus, Jey.shie jyutz huay Je, bae .ta rheng.le .ba 'These tangerines have spoiled, better throw it (i.e. them) away.' Possessives of personal pronouns are formed by adding the subordinative suffix .de. Possessive pronouns are not used, as they are in English, when the possessor is obvious, as Woo day.le mawtz jiow tzoou .le Ί put on (my) hat and went away,' since it is presumably my own hat that I put on. On the other hand, there is a special use of the possessive pronoun not paralleled by English usage. Certain verb-object compounds take an inserted possessive where there would normally be a pronoun object in English, as bang-mang 'help-busy, — to help': bang ta.de mang 'help his being busy, — help him'; daa-chah 'strike digression, — to interrupt': daa ta.de chah 'strike his digression, — to interrupt him.' We shall speak of such verbobject compounds as taking a possessive object. D - A N compounds form another large class of substitutes. For example, in Jell yeou leangg cherntz, geei nii ig 'There are two oranges here, I give you one,' the D - A N compound ig is a substitute. The verb lai ' come' may be regarded as a substitute, or pro-verb, as in Nii buhuey pu-chwang, rang woo lai 'You don't know how to make the bed, let me do it.' Compounds with -yanq or -yanql 'manner' can also be used as pro-verbs, as Bye nemm.yanql! ' D o n ' t do that!' 25. Verbs, Adjectives, and Prepositions. — A verb is a syntactic word which can be modified by the adverb bu (except that the verb yeou takes mei) and can be followed by the phrase suffix .le. These two characteristics are common to all verbs. From other characteristics we can distinguish

48

INTRODUCTION

seven types of verbs. We shall first describe the meanings of various types of verbs and then state their formal features in the form of a table. Under intransitive verbs (v.i.), we have (a) action v.i., as lai 'come/ dzuoh 'sit,' ku 'cry, weep'; (b) quality v.i., or adjectives, as dah 'big,' shaa 'foolish,' shyng 'all right, will do'; (c) status v.i., as binq 'sick,' terng ' t o ache,' naw ' t o be noisy.' Under transitive verbs (v.t.) we have (d) action v.t.: the verbs in kann-shih 'see a play,' chu-hann 'issue sweat, — to sweat,' sha-ren 'kill people'; (e) quality v.t.: the verbs in ay-tsair 'love wealth, — avaricious,' fey-shyh 'cost work, — troublesome,' shinn-for 'believe in Buddha'; (f) classificatory v.t., the verbs in tzay-jia 'is at home,' shinq Wu ' t o have the surname of Wu,' sh iatz 'is a duck'; (g) Auxiliary verbs: the first verbs in huey fei 'can fly,' keen shuo-huah 'willing to talk,' sheang chiuh 'desire to go.' As formal differentia of these types of verbs, we shall, besides the common points about bu and the phrase .le, consider the possibility of combination with the following: Before the word suffix -.le (p. 40), before the progressive suffix -j (pronounced -.jy or -.je), after adverbs of degree like heen 'very' genq 'still more,' etc., and after and in series with the pretransitive bae (with object). In the following table, a " + " sign indicates that the form in question combines with the verb and a " — " sign that it does not. bu

.le

-.le 14

heen-

-3

+

Action v.i. lai 'come' Quality v.i. dah 'big' Status v.i. binq 'sick'

+ + + + + +

(+) (+) (+)

Action v.t. kann-shih 'see a play' Quality v.t. ay-tsair ' love wealth' Classif. v.t. tzay-jia ' is at home'

+ + + + + +

+ + + (+) 16 —

+

—

—

Aux. v.(t.) huey fei 'can

+

—

—

+

fly'

+

-

+

—

15

+

+ —

—

For bound verbs as complements, see verb-complement compounds, p. 43.

Prepositions are verbs which are usually in the first position in verbal expressions in series. For example, in Woo sheir yee bu wey ' I am not for 14 Intransitive verbs take the word suffix -.le only before cognate objects or quantified objects, as in binq.le san-tian 'sick for three days.' 16 Quality verbs take the suffix -j only in the special idiom -j .ne as in dahj .ne! 'bigger than you think!' Note that while - j is normally a suffix to the verb, it is placed, in this idiom, after the verb-object as a whole, as Fey-shyh j .ne! 'It takes an awful lot of trouble!' 16 Classificatory verbs, especially the verb sh 'is,' rarely take the word suffix -.le.

GRAMMAR

49

anybody (in particular)/ wey 'to be for' is the main verb, but the principal use of wey is in constructions like Woo wey (or weyj or wey.le) nil show-tzuey Ί suffer on your account.' Again, Ta tzay-jia .ne 'He is at home,' but Ta tzay jia chiing-keh .ne 'He is having company at home.' Other examples of prepositives are tsorng 'follow, from,' daa 'strike, from,' jiee 'from' ( < chii 'rise'), bii 'compare, than.' Pretransitives (p. 162) bae (alternating with bay and baa) 'take,' geei 'give, for,' ranq 'yield, let,' bey 'covered,' 'by (agent),' goan 'control,' used as pretransitive to go with jiaw 'call,' na 'take, with,' — all these are prepositions in the sense defined here. The two words yii 'take, with' and yu ' (to be) a t ' and compounds with yu as guanyu 'concernyig' and jyhyu 17 'as for' are always used in verbal expressions in series and not used as main verbs in the colloquial. The current usage of writing Yu Beeipyng 'at Peiping' at the end of prefaces still seems queer to many readers. 26. Adverbs and Conjunctions. — Monosyllabic adverbs are bound words in Chinese,18 as jiow lai 'coming right away,' buneng 'cannot,' dahshiaw 'laugh loudly,' shian tzoou 'go first.' Adverbs of two or more syllables are free words, as they can be separated by pause, as Nit yiijinq shu .le, or Nii .a, yiijinq .a, shu .le 'You have already lost (the bet, etc.)'; Ta meijoel yng .le 'He, there is no telling, has won, — he possibly has won.' Other examples of free adverbs are: idinq 'certainly,' tzyhran 'of course,' swo.shinq 'might as well,' shinq.kuei 'fortunately,' yeuan'iual 'at a good distance.' There are probably no true conjunctions in Chinese. Some words like coordinate conjunctions are really verbs. Thus, Jeyg gen neyg iyanq 'This and that are alike' is to be analyzed as 'This following that is same,' so that gen neyg is really the first member of verbal expressions in series. Similarly, Jang San gen Lii Syh sh ren 'Jang San following Lii Syh is human being, —• Jang San and Lii Syh are men.' The word 0hann (alternating with ο hay and reading pronunciation her) is used in the same way as gen. Other words which are like conjunctions are free adverbs, which can be set off like miniature sentences. For example, Kee.sh ta bu doong 'It's however (like this): he doesn't understand,' or, again, Ta kee.sh bu doong 'He, however, doesn't understand.' In fact, practically all conjunctions can be inserted between the subject and the verb and are thus like interpolated comments of 'it-seems-to-me' type. Other examples are yaw.sh 'if' (from 'being like that'), jearu 'if' (from 'granting as'), jihran 'since' (from 'already so'), binqchiee 'moreover' (from 'together also'), suoo0yii 'therefore' (from 'there with'). Jiow 'then' and kee 'however,' being monosyllabic adverbs, are always bound with the following verb and must 17 18

But bujyhyu 'not as bad as' (Lesson 21, Exercise 1, p. 273.) is always a main verb. For pedagogical reasons, we spell them separately in most cases.

50

INTRODUCTION

therefore follow the subject, as Bu shiah-yeu woo jiow lai ' (If) it doesn't rain, then I will go.' Woo kee gow .le Ί , however, have had enough.' 27. Interjections and Vocatives. — Interjections are the only words which are always free. Another formal feature of an interjection is that it has no tone, but only an intonation, usually of the pitch pattern of 42: S. We shall spell interjections in the basic form of the finals, but if the same syllable serves either as a phrase suffix (which is always bound) or as an interjection (which is always free), we spell the former in the basic form and the latter in the 4th Tone. For example, Lai .a! 'Do come!' but Lai, .ah! 'Come, please do!' Some interjections have special intonations which are even more important in carrying the meaning than the sounds. For example, Ae! Mm! or Eeng! (i.e. [§:] or [r]:]), with a long 3rd Tone, often with a fall after the rise, all mean 'Oh, no indeed!' Other parts of speech used as interjections lose most or all of their tones. For example, in Hao-jia.huoo! 'My goodness!' Hao (3rd Tone) is only a shade lower than jia (1st Tone), as compared with the phrase hao jia.huoo 'a good tool,' in which hao is distinctly low and jia is distinctly high in pitch. Terms of direct address also lose most or all of their tones. Thus, in the word jiee.jiee 'elder sister' in a sentence has the tone pattern of J 1, but in calling Jiee.jiee! the first syllable is only slightly lower than the second, ending with a lengthening of the vowel and a drop in pitch. We can therefore say that Chinese nouns have a vocative case, characterized by narrowing or loss of tone and a suffix consisting of a drop in pitch. G. TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES While Chinese grammar proper should deal only with the grammatical features which are actually found in the Chinese language, an Englishspeaking student of Chinese cannot help being concerned about how English grammatical categories will be translated into Chinese. This is a perfectly healthy state of mind, provided that the student remembers the general fact that every grammatical feature of one language does not necessarily correspond to some similar feature, or even any grammatical feature, of another language. Any utterance in an actual context can be translated fairly accurately, to be sure, but not necessarily by the same means of expression. Thus, the English phrase 'No, thank you!' can be translated more "idiomatically" by a smile and a polite gesture than by the recent translation borrowing Duoshieh, buyaw .le! 'Many thanks, I don't want any more.' Keeping in mind the fact that grammatical features do not correspond, we shall now try to see how in general various forms in English grammar can be translated into Chinese.

GRAMMAR

51

28. Article and Number of Nouns. — No articles are required before Chinese nouns; nor has Chinese distinction of number. Nouns taken in the generic sense also take the simple form. We do not say, ' The lion is a noble animal,' or Ά fool and his money are soon parted,' or 'Houses are scarce,' but simply say, ' M a n is a rational animal.' In first mentioning a particular individual, as in telling a story, i ' one' plus some AN will play the part of the indefinite article, as Tsorngchyan yeou ig hwu.li 'Formerly there was a fox.' After a verb, i is often omitted, as Νa .beel shu .lai 'Bring a book here,' where beel is the AN in i-beel 'a volume.' Definite and indefinite reference is often determined by word order. A noun in subject position usually refers to something definite,19 while a noun in object position usually refers to something indefinite. For example, Shu tzay naalf 'Where is the book?' but, Νaal yeou shu? 'Where is a book (or are some books)? (lit. 'What place has book?') If an object has a definite reference, the fact is indicated by a demonstrative or some other suitable modifier, as Woo kann-wan.le jey-beel shu .le Ί have finished reading this book.' But the preferred construction is Jey-beel shu woo kannwan.le, or, with the pretransitive (Note 49, p. 162), Woo bae jey-beel shu kann-wan.le. (See also Note 1, p. 206.) Nouns in apposition have two rather different types of translational equivalents, a loose kind and a close kind. For example, woo.de jerl Wenlan 'my nephew Wenlan' or Wenlan, woo.de ig jerl 'Wenlan, a nephew of mine,' are cases of loose apposition, which are coordinate phrases. On the other hand, in a close apposition, with the specific word before the generic, the whole construction is one subordinate compound and the order is not reversible, as 'dah'-tzyh 'the word " d a h " , ' 'a'-in 'the sound " a " , ' Wang .Shian.sheng 'Mr. Wang.' 29. Each, Every, All, Some, Any, etc. — 'Each' is translated by the determinative meei- plus an AN, as meei-yanql ig 'one of each kind.' The determinative geh- (not the AN -geh) is often translated as ' each' in Chinese-English dictionaries, but actually it is more accurate to equate it to 'the various,' as geh-sheeng 'the various provinces.' Geh-ren (but more commonly meeig ren) is the only common word in which geh- is to be translated as 'each.' 'Every,' as we have seen is translated by reduplication of the AN plus an optional -I, as hweihwei or hweihwel 'every time.' 'All' is translated by the adverb dou 'in all cases, without exception,' as Keh.ren dou daw .le 'The guests have all arrived'; or by suoo yeou .de . . . dou 'whatever there is . . . in all cases,' as Suoo yeou .de tzarjyh woo dou yaw dinq Ί want to order all the magazines.' 19 See Joseph Mullie, The Structural Principles of the Chinese Language, English translation by A. C. Versichel, Peiping, 1932, vol. 1, pp. 160 ff. The point was brought out still more explicitly by Lien Sheng Yang in discussions with the author

52

INTRODUCTION

'Some' is expressed by yeou .de 'there are those which,' 20 as Yeou .de ren bu chy suann 'There are people who don't eat garlic, — some people don't eat garlic.' 'Some' in the sense of 'a little' is -.deal or -.i.deal and 'a few' is jiig 'several' or yeou jiig 'there are a few.' Compounds with 'some' are expressed by sherm.me or 'what' naal 'where,' as Woo sheang chy .deal .sherm.me Ί want to eat something'; Tzar.men sheang g sherm fartz .lai shuo-shinn .ta 'Let's think of some way to convince him'; Tzar.men deei shanq naal wal.wal' We must go somewhere and have a good time.' 'Any' and forms with 'any' are expressed by sherm.me, tzeem.me, naal, neei-, etc. plus dou, as Τa sherm dou chy 'He eats anything'; Jeyg sheir dou neng gaw.sonq .nii 'Anybody can tell you that'; Tzeem gae dou shyng ' I t will be all right to alter it any old way.' 'Not any' or ' n o - ' compounds are translated by dou. . .bu (or mei) or yee . . .bu (or mei), as Τa sherm dou bu doong 'He doesn't understand anything'; Naal yee jao.bu-jaur farnglz 'Can't find a house anywhere'; Τa tzeem yee bucherng 'There is no pleasing him'; Neeig dou bu hershyh 'None is suitable.' 'Either' and 'neither' are translated like 'any' and 'not any,' as Neeig dou shyng 'Either one will do'; Neei-baa yaw.shyr dou bu pey jey-baa suoo 'Neither key fits this lock.' 'Another' in the seiise of 'a different one' is bye.de, as Geei .woo i-baa bye.de gaanjuei 'Give me another screwdriver' (the one you gave me was too small). 'Another' in the sense of 'an additional one' is rendered by placing the adverb hair ' still' or tzay ' again' before the verb, as Tzay geei .woo i-baa gaanjuei' Give me another screwdriver' (one is not enough). ' The other' (of two) is expressed by ney- plus AN, as Mei ren kann.jiann.guoh yueh.lianq .de ney.miall 'Nobody has seen the other side of the moon.' 30. Adjectives. — Since Chinese adjectives are verbs, they form predicates without requiring a verb 'to be,' as Ta chyong 'He is poor.' The verb sh is used before an adjective only under the following conditions: (1) when there is a .de at the end, which makes the expression following sh a substantive, as Jeyg shoeiguoo sh sheng .de 'This fruit is unripe,' where sheng .de stands for sheng .de shoeiguoo 'unripe fruit' or sheng .de dong.shi 'something unripe'; (2) for contrast, as Ta sh deryih, bu.sh jiau.aw ' He is proud, not conceited'; (3) for emphatic assertion, as Τa sh chyong 'He is poor'; (4) in the concessive form Y-.sh-Y (Note 12, p. 184), which is really a variety of the preceding, as Hao .sh hao, (kee.sh . . .) ' (As for being) good, it is good, — it's good, to be sure, ( b u t . . .)' All such uses of sh are also possible before other verbs as well as adjectives, as (1) Ta sh lai bay.wanq .nii .de 'He came to call on you,' where .de has the force of 'He is one who ...' or 'His is a case of . . .'; (2) Woo sh M

This fits in with the principle in formal logic that particular propositions imply existence.

GRAMMAR

53

chiuh sonq .ta, bu.shjie .ta'I went to see him off, not to meet him'; (3) Ta sh shinn Jidujiaw 'He does believe in Christianity'; (4) Ta jieh .sh jieh, kee.sh bu geei 'He does lend, it's true, but he doesn't give.' For adjectives which admit of degrees, the comparative is expressed by -.deal 'some' or -.i.deal 'a little,' as Tajiel hao.deal .le 'He is better today.' Sometimes, the simple form is used if the comparison is obvious, as Hair.sh jeyg hao 'After all this is good, — this is better.' In explicit comparison, ' than' is translated by bii ' compare' in the first member of verbal expressions in series, as Τa bii ta sheau 'He is smaller (or younger) than he.' When bii is used, -.deal or -.i.deal is optional. Equality is expressed by yeou 'have,' as Woo yeou nii (nemm) gau Ί have you (that) tall, — I am as tall as you.' Another form of expressing equality is gen . . . iyanq 'with. . . same,' as Shoei gen huoo iyanq weishean 'Water with fire same dangerous, — water is as dangerous as fire.' Inferior degree is expressed by mei or mei.yeou, as Jeyg mei neyg {nemm) hao 'This has not that (that) good, — this is not so good as that.' Superlative degree is expressed by diing or tzuey 'most, -est,' as diing hao 'best.' Note that 'had better' is rendered by the superlative form, as Tzar.men diing hao tzoou .ba 'We had better go.' For further examples see Lesson 7, esp. Note 21, p. 169. Intensives are expressed by heen 'very,' tiing 'pretty, rather,' -.jyi.le 'awfully,' as hao-jyi.le 'awfully good,' . . . .de heen 'extremely,' as kuoh .de heen 'extremely wealthy,' and by many other forms. Because heen is frequently used only to round out a monosyllabic predicative adjective, its intensitive force is somewhat weaker than English 'very.' 31. Prepositions. — English prepositions may be translated in four different ways. (1) A verb 'to be' followed by a preposition can be translated by the transitive verb tzay 'to be at,' as Τa tzay Hannkoou 'He is at Hankow.' If the preposition expresses a more specific locality than 'at,' a localizer is added to the object in Chinese. Thus, Chwan tzay hae.shanq, lit. 'The ship is at sea-top,' where tzay translates 'is on' so far as 'being there' is concerned, but it takes a localizer -.shanq 'upper part' to give the 'on' part, as distinguished from 'in,' 'under,' etc. (Lesson 5). (2) When a prepositional phrase modifies a noun in English, it must precede the noun in Chinese, usually with the modifying particle .de, as tzay hae.shanq .de chwan 'being on sea-top kind of ship, — the ship on the sea.' Tzay can usually be omitted, as shu.lii .de tzyh ' book-inside's word, — the words in the book.' (3) If a prepositional phrase follows a verb in English and expresses a modifying circumstance or manner, it is translated as the first member of verbal expressions in series, as Ta tzay Meei.gwo niann-shu ' He being in America studies, — he studies in America.' (See also pp. 48-49.) (4) When an English prepositional phrase following a verb expresses a result or an important point in the predication, it is translated by a comple-

54

INTRODUCTION

ment, that is, a phrase after the verb. For example, Tajuh .tzay Beeipyng ' H e lives in Peiping,' emphasizing the idea that his home is Peiping, whereas Τa tzay Beeipyng juh 'He lives in Peiping' emphasizes the idea of his maintaining an abode and the locality is only an accompanying circumstance (Note 28, p. 54). In a similar way, an adverbial phrase expressing an important point of a sentence is often placed in a predicate position, as Τ a chy .de mann 'The way he eats (is) slow, — he eats slowly,' since the point is not that he eats — for he eats anyway — but that he eats slowly. 32. Voice of verbs. — There is no distinction of voice in Chinese, the direction of action depending upon the context (p. 35). Thus, Woo yaw shii lean Ί want to wash my face': Lean hair mei shii .ne ' M y face has not yet been washed.' An agent expression similar to the 'by'-form in English passive construction is translated into the first part of a verbal expression in series with geei 'give' or bey 'suffer' as the verb. For example, Liingtz geei .ta sy-poh.le 'The collar give him tore-broken, — the collar has been torn by him.' (See also Note 45, p. 193.) A more frequent way of translating an agent expression for past action is to make it into a substantivepredicate construction. Thus, I.fwu sh woo mae .de 'The clothes are I-bought ones, — the clothes were bought by m e ' ; Jey-tyau kuhtz sh ta tanq .de 'This trouser is he-ironed one, — this pair of trousers was ironed by him.' 33. Tense and Aspect of Verbs. — Chinese verbs have no tense. Thus, the same form sh is used both in Woo sh Jong.gworen Ί am a Chinese,' and Koong Tzyy sh Luu.gworen 'Confucius was a native of the State of Lu.' In Jiel guoh-nian 'Today (we) celebrate the New Year,' the same verb will also do for tzwol 'yesterday' or miengl 'tomorrow.' When it is desired to state explicitly that a thing has already happened or did happen on a previous occasion, the verb may be followed by the suffix -.guoh, the word suffix -.le or the phrase suffix .le. That these are not Chinese tense forms can be seen from the fact that they are not constant features of verbs determined automatically by the time of the event, but may or may not be used according to whether the speaker wishes to bring out explicitly the time element. Note that action verbs (p. 48) are more likely to have these suffixes than the other types of verbs. When the object expresses a specified quantity or number (including ' one') and the verb refers to a past event, the verb always takes the suffix .le, as shuey.le i-jiaw 'slept a nap, — had a nap,' kann.jiann.le shyrg ren 'saw ten people.' The difference between the English simple past form for an isolated event and the perfect form for an event regarded as now having been completed often corresponds, respectively, to the use of the word suffix -.le and the use of both the word suffix and the phrase suffix .le. For example, Woo jaw.le i-jang shianq Ί took a photograph' (and the inci-

GRAMMAR

55

dent is considered closed): Woo jaw.le i-jang shianq .le Ί have taken a photograph' (and may take another or do something else). If the object is not in quantified form, it is possible to say, for example, Woo jaw.le shianq .le or Woo jaw-shianq .le Ί have taken (a) photograph,' but a form like Woo jaw.le shianq does not usually stand alone as a complete utterance. (See also Note 48, p. 193.) Past time is often implied by the use of the phrase suffix .de in the predicate, especially when there is a specific point about the event. For example, Τa tzwol lai .de or Τa sh tzwol lai .de 'He is one who came yesterday, — it was yesterday that he came, — he came yesterday,' where the use of .de implies that his coming can already be classified and is therefore presumably a past event. If there is an object, the preferred form (not used in central or southern dialects) is to put .de before the object. For example, Woo sh gangtsair gua .de lean, lit. Ί am a face which was scraped just a while ago, — I had a shave just a while ago.' A sentence of this form could be really ambiguous if taken out of context. Thus, Ta sh chiuh.nian sheng .de sheauharl could mean either ' H e (or she) is a child who was born last year' or ' I t was last year that she gave birth to a child.' A sentence like Ta sh i-jeousyh-ba nian sheuanjeu .de tzoongtoong may mean (1) 'He was the president who was elected in 1948,' or (2) ' I t was in 1948 that he was elected President,' or (3) ' I t was in 1948 that he voted for a president,' the last being the construction under discussion. In an actual context there is, of course, little chance for ambiguity. Progressive action or event is expressed by the adverbs 0 tzay.nall, oday.nall, tzay 'right there,' jenq 'just,' the word suffix -j '-ing,' or the phrase suffix .ne, or combination of these, as Ta jenq tzay.nall kannj haw .ne 'He right there reading newspaper, — he is reading a newspaper.' Chinese is like English in having no future form of the verb, as Miengl fanq-jiah 'Tomorrow is holiday.' When necessary, the idea of future events is expressed by auxiliary verbs like yaw 'will,' huey 'will likely,' or by adverbs like jiow 'then, soon,' kuay 'fast, on the point of.' Note that an intransitive verb of action without any adverb or suffix is usually understood to apply to future time, as Woo chiuh Ί am going,' or Ί plan to go·' 34. Infinitives. — Since infinitives are used for a variety of purposes, there is no one way of translating them. Infinitives as subjects are translated as verbal subjects (p. 36). Infinitives after verbs are translated as the second verb in verbal expressions in series, as jiaw .ta lai 'tell him to come.' Infinitives of purpose are usually expressed by 0chiuh before the verb in question, .chiuh 'go' after it, or both 0chiuh before and .chiuh after, or, less frequently, by lai in a similar way. For example:

56

INTRODUCTION

'bring money go buy provisions 'send someone to see me'

22

- sheang.chu .deal wanyell .lai

.chiuh piann-ren piann-ren .chiuh, piann-ren S: .lai piann-ren piann-ren .lai piann-ren

I

.chiuh .chiuh .lai .lai

All the six forms mean 'think of some trick to fool people.' Instead of lai or chiuh before the verb, it is also possible to use hao ' (in order) the better to,' which may or may not be followed by .chiuh after the main verb, but rarely followed by .lai. For examples of hao in this sense, see Exercise 2, p. 249. 35. Coordinate Conjunctions. — We have seen that coordination in Chinese takes no conjunction and that Chinese conjunctions and adverbs are hard to distinguish. English 'and' between clauses is usually not translated, as Jiel tial hao, woo deei haohaul lih.yonq .ta 'It's a fine day, and I must make good use of it.' For special emphasis, adverbs like erlchiee or binqchiee 'moreover' and yow 'again' (the last always after the subject) can be used, as Ta tzoou Je, erlchiee ta tzoou .de heen jyi 'He has left, and he left in a hurry.' 'Both . . . and' is rendered by the adverbs yow . . . yow, or yee . . . yee, as Ta yow cheau yow tsong.ming 'He is both skillful and clever'; Muu.dan yee kai-hual.le, meiguey yee kai-hual .le 'Both the peonies and the roses have opened their flowers' (note repetition of the predicate). 'Either . . . or' can be rendered by 0huoh.jee (alternating with Ohuoh.sh, .he.je, .he.sh) . . . Ohuoh.jee, as Huoh.sh nii shanq woo.jell lai, huoh.sh woo shanq nii.nall chiuh 'Either you come to my place, or I go to your place.' A much commoner way of saying that, however, is to put the alternatives in the form of a condition. Thus, Bu.sh nii shanq woo.jell lai, jiow.sh woo shanq nii.nall chiuh ' If it isn't a case of your coming to my place, then it's a case of my going to your place.' 23 (See Note 32, p. 161.) 81

Lai with full tone here would mean 'see me come.' This .lai is the second part of the split complement -.chu.lai and has nothing to do with the indication of purpose. ** This fits in with the principle in formal logic that 'p or q' is equivalent to 'if not p, then q.' !1

GRAMMAR

57

36. Relatives and Dependent Clauses. — Non-restrictive relatives are translated by a pivotal object-subject construction or by using a resuming ta if it is a person, as Woo yeou ig perng.yeou (la) tzuey ay shuo-huah Ί have a friend, who is most fond of talking.' Restrictive relatives are translated by using the subordinative suffix .de, as tzuey ay shuo-huah .de ren 'the man who is most fond of talking' (Note 38, p. 132). If the relative is an object in the relative clause (often omitted in English), it can be translated by the emphatic adverb suoo, as Jyakeh (suoo) tzaw de farngtz ' the house (that) Jack built' (Note 20, p. 184). If the relative is in a possessive form or follows a preposition, it can be disregarded in the translation, as tzyh tay sheau .de shu ' a book whose (or in which the) print is too small,' woo lai .de dih.fangl 'the place I come from.' If necessary for clearness, a preposition with an object is used in the .de construction, as Woo tsorng nail lai .de dih.fangl 'the place I come from (there)' (Note 34, p. 201). 'When' can be translated as .de Oshyr.howl, as Ta shuey-jaur.le .de .shyr.howl hair shuo-huah 'He fall asleep's time still talks, — he still talks when he is asleep.' But when 'when' means ' a f t e r ' or 'as soon as,' then the suffix -.le is added to the verb and no .de Oshyr.howl is necessary, as Ta shuo-wan.le huahjiow tzoou .le 'When he finished talking, he went away'; Ta kann.jiann.le woo shiah.le i-tiaw 'When he saw me, he was startled.' The translation of a conditional or concessive clause precedes that of the main clause to which it is subordinated, as Yaw.sh shiah-yeu woo jiow bu chiuh 'If it rains, (then) I won't go.' A conditional or concessive clause never follows the main clause except as an afterthought after a dash, in which case the words .de .huah ' (if it is) a matter of,' are added, as Woo bu chiuh — yaw.sh tial bu chyng .de .huah ' I am not going — unless it clears up.' A premeditated dependent clause placed without pause after the main clause (found in some contemporary writing) is definitely a Europeanism and is appreciated as such. 'Because' or 'since' is mostly translated by in0wey, and 'so' or 'therefore' by suoo0yii as Ta in.wey shang.lefenq, suoo.yii bu lai .le 'He has caught cold, so is not coming, — as he has caught cold, he is not coming.' A clause with inawey can be placed last if .de 0yuan.guh 'the reason of' is placed at the end, thus making it substantive predicate. Yeou .de meei.gworen buhuey shuo Jong.gwo-huah, (sh) in.wey ta.men tsornglai mei haohaul shyue.guoh .de .yuan.guh 'Some Americans cannot speak Chinese, (that's) because they have never studied it properly.' 37. Negation and Interrogation. — Simple negation is expressed by using bu ' n o t ' before the word negated, as keen lai 'willing to come,' bukeen lai 'not willing to come,' keen bu lai 'willing not to come,' bukeen bu lai 'unwilling not to come.' The negative of yeou 'have' is mei, or mei0yeou. The negative of an imperative verb is bye or buyaw ' d o n ' t . . . !' or berng (< buyonq) 'no use, — need not.'

58

INTRODUCTION

The negative of a verb ending in -.guoh, ~.le, or .le expressing completion or past time, takes the form of mei or mei.yeou before, as lai.le, lai.guoh 'have come, did come,' mei lai, mei.yeou lai 'have not come, did not come'; -.guoh can also be retained when mei or mei.yeou is used, but .le (in this sense) always drops out in the negative. The negative of a verb with a potential complement of the form Y.de-C takes the form Y.bu-C, as tsa.bu-gan 'cannot wipe dry.' (See Note 39, p. 145.) The negative of a verb with the progressive suffix -j takes mei(.yeou) or bu.sh according as the denial is applied to the fact or to the content. Thus, Woo mei denqj yeal Ί was not staring': Wo bu.sh denqj yeal Ί was not staring' (but doing something else). When negation is applied to a phrase or a whole sentence, bu.sh 'it is not t h a t . . .' is used instead of the simple bu, as Woo bu.sh idinq bukeen 'Not that I insist on refusing.' Questions in Chinese can be divided into four types: (a) questions with interrogative words, (b) disjunctive questions, (c) A-not-A questions, (d) yes-or-no questions. (a) Questions mth interrogative words are the easiest to ask and answer. The rule is: Ask as you would be answered. Thus, Nii sh sheirf 'You are who, — who are you?' because the answer is not in the order 'Wang am I,' but, as in English, Ί am Wang.' Nii yaw kann liibayjii .de baw? 'You want to read what-day-of-the-week's newspaper?' Woo yaw kann liibay'ell .de Ί want to read Tuesday's.' (This question, which is a perfectly natural one in Chinese, cannot even be asked in the same specific way in English.) (b) Disjunctive questions, or questions requesting a choice of alternatives, are added by putting the alternatives in coordination by juxtaposition, as Nii chy-fann chy miannf 'Will you eat rice or noodles?' A much more frequent form, however, consists in adding a verb sh 'it is a case of,' or οhair.sh, 'it is after all a case of' (both usually in the neutral tone), before both terms or before the second term only. Thus, (1) (2) (3) (4)

Nii .sh Nii Nii .hair.sh Nii

chy-fann chy-fann chy-fann chy-fann

.sh .sh .hair.sh .hair.sh

chy-miannf chy-miannf chy-miannf chy-miannf

Of these, the last is the commonest form. Note that the English question written as 'Will you eat rice or noodles?' is ambiguous if the intonation is not known. If the intonation rises on 'rice' and falls on 'noodles,' it is a disjunctive question and the translation will be: Nii chy-fann .hair.sh chy-miann .af to which the answer may be

GRAMMAR

59

Chy-fann or Chy-miann. With a generally rising intonation (or, in southern British intonation, with a dip before the final rise), it is a yes-or-no question and the Chinese will be: Nii chy .bu .chy fann .huoh.jee miann .a? to which the expected answer will be Chy 'Yes, I will eat (either of the two)' or Bu chy ' N o (I am not hungry).' In the first case, ' o r ' is translated by οhair.sh; in the second case, by Ohuoh.jee. For further examples see Note 47, p. 145. (c) A-not-A questions are disjunctive questions in which the choice is between something and its negative. In such cases, the word 0hair.sh or .sh is almost always omitted. The English equivalent of such a question is the common yes-or-no question. Nii chou-ίαη .bu .chou .a? 'You smoke (or) don't smoke, — do you smoke?' Nii daw.guoh Beeipyng .mei.yeou ' You have been to Peiping or have not, — have you ever been to Peiping?' Since these are disjunctive questions, they cannot be answered by words expressing agreement or disagreement, like Duey .le, Sh .de or Bu.sh, but must have the terms in the disjunction repeated, as Woo chou' I do (smoke)' or Bu chou' I don't'; Daw.guoh' I have been there' or Mei.yeou' I have not.' Of course if sh happens to be the main verb in the original question, then the answer will be Sh .de or Bu.sh, on a par with Chy or Bu chy. Note that when the verb is yeou, the ' not-A' part of the A-not-A form of question becomes .mei.yeou, as Jell yeou deng .mei.yeou? 'Has this place a light?' Since, also, the negation of a verb with .le is mei.yeou, a question with .le in the A-not-A form take the following form: Τa daw le .mei.yeou? 'He has arrived (or) has not, — has he arrived?' (d) True yes-or-no questions are less frequent than in English, since most yes-or-no questions are put in the disjunctive A-not-A form, as described above. Yes-or-no questions are in the form of posed statements with the addition of one of the particles .ma, .a, .ba (< bu .a) (cf. Ex. 3, p. 139), or of a miniature disjunctive question .sh .bu.sh, like the French 'n'est-ce pasV For assent to such questions one can use Sh .de ' I t is so,' Duey .le 'That's right,' .Eh 'Uh-huh' or a syllabic .M or .Eng 'M-hm!' 'Yeah;' and for dissent Bu 'No,' Bu.jie 'No,' Bu.sh 'Not so,' or Buduey 'wrong!' Note that while yes-or-no questions in English call for affirmation or negation, questions under (d) call for agreement or disagreement, which is not the same thing unless the question is in the positive form. If the question is in the negative, then the answer in Chinese will seem to be the opposite to that of the English. For example, if the question is: Nii bu shii.huan leushyng .ma? 'You don't like to travel?' and if the answer is one of dissent, it will be: Bu, woo shii.huan leushyng 'Not so, I do like to travel.' On the other hand, if the question is: Niim mei.yeou shiangjiau .ma? 'Have you no bananas?' and if the answer is one of agreement (and therefore in the negative), it will be: Sh .de, woom mei.yeou shiangjiau 'Yes, we have no bananas.'

CHAPTER IV THE CHARACTERS This course is so designed that the student can either start learning the characters with the first lesson, or, as a better alternative, go through all the twenty-four lessons in romanization to acquire a speaking knowledge of the language and then begin again from Lesson 1 to study the same text in characters. For certain purposes, one can go on studying the spoken language without learning the characters. But if one wishes to gain access to written or printed material, or to any part of the vast body of Chinese literature, the difficult task of learning to read characters will have to be faced sooner or later. In starting with characters, however, one should never allow them to be merely associated with English words, thus shortcircuiting the Chinese pronunciation and losing the feeling of the Chinese constructions. This practice would vitiate not only the learning of the language, but also the proper learning of the writing. You cannot read a living language by regarding it as dead. 1. Pictographs and Ideographs. — Ancient Chinese writing is usually described as being pictorial or ideographic. Thus, a circle with a dot inside it is the character for 'sun' and three horizontal strokes represent the number 'three.' In Chinese tradition, six categories of characters called liowshu 1 are recognized. (1) Shianqshyng 'pictographs' are the easiest to understand. (2) Jyyshyh 'simple ideographs' are characters consisting of simple diagrammatic indications of ideas, as -L for ' u p ' and Τ for 'down' or — H , ΞΞ. for the numbers 'one, two, three.' (3) Hueyyih 'compound ideographs' are characters whose meaning is the combination of the meanings of their parts. Stock examples of these are j h 'stop' + :3c 'arms' = 'military'; f 'man' + H 'word' = -fit 'honest'; Η 'sun' + Μ 'moon' = BB 'bright.' Characters under the preceding three categories form only a small minority of all characters. They are comparatively independent of the words in the language they represent. For example, three strokes would form as good a sign for the English word ' three' as for the Chinese word san. Conceivably the Chinese system of writing could have developed along its own line into a complete system of symbols, independently of the Chinese language. Actually, however, from very ancient times, the written characters have become so intimately associated with the words of the language that they have lost their functions as pictographs or ideographs in their own right and become conventionalized visual representations of spoken words, or "logographs." They are no longer direct symbols 1

First used systematically by Hsü Sh6n (d. circa 120 A.D.) in his 9353-word dictionary

Shuo-w&n. 60

THE CHARACTERS

61

of ideas, but only symbols of ideas in so far as the spoken words they represent are symbols of ideas.2 One should not, therefore, be misled by the popular conception that an analysis of the formation of characters will lead to a correct understanding of the Chinese words written with them. To be sure, characters often contain stories and histories which are helpful to the memory, but the actual meaning of each word has to be learned as such. Thus, the word wuu ' military,' is written with the character made up of _lk 'stop' and Jc 'weapons, arms,' i.e. ' (the power to) stop armed force.' Likewise, the word shinn, written 1H, means ' honest.' The traditional analysis of the character is 'a man's word,' but it requires a further act of memory to know that it is the proverbial "Chinaman's word" that is meant. 2. Loan Characters, Phonetic Compounds, and Derivative Characters. •— The vast majority of characters belong to three other categories, which have to do with phases of the development of characters functioning as logographs. In devising characters for words, obviously the meaning of many words could not be pictured. A common practice was to borrow a character whose word had the same sound as the word for which a character was sought. Thus, in Archaic Chinese, there was a word hg for a kind of wheat, which was written with a picture of the plant. (See Table 2A, p. 67.) Now there was a homonymous word hg 'come.' Rather than invent another character for this word with a meaning that was hard to picture or indicate diagrammatically, the ancient writers simply borrowed the character for the plant and wrote the word for 'come' with it. Such characters are known as (4) jeajieh 'loan characters' or 'borrowed characters.' In the example cited, the original word happens to have become obsolete long ago. In some cases, both the original word and the word for which the character was borrowed exist side by side, as ran ffe 'to burn,' the character also used for the word ran 'thus, so.' To differentiate the two, an extra part A 'fire' was added to the character (which, as an ideographic compound, already contains a part meaning 'fire' in the form of four dots at the bottom), thus making an 'enlarged character' for ran 'to burn,' 2 This point was brought out clearly by Peter S. Du Ponceau in his book A Dissertation on the Nature and Character of the Chinese System of Writing, Philadelphia, 1838, esp. pp. xi and xxii. William F. Edgerton, in his note on Ideograms in English Writing, Language, 17.2. 148-50 (1941), cited some interesting cases, such as the symbol 2 standing for an idea represented by various words or parts of words like two, sec- (in 2nd), etc. Though similar cases exist in Chinese writing, they are not much more frequent than in English. For practically all Chinese characters have long since become logographs. Thus, both JH and seem to represent the idea of 'two,' but one represents the word ell (or, strictly, the class of words in all dialects cognate with Mandarin ell) and the other the word leang (and its cognates). These words and the characters representing them are not interchangeable, and their occurrence is governed by purely grammatical, and not by mathematical, conditions. See also Peter A. Boodberg, "Some Proleptical Remarks on the Evolution of Archaic Chinese," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 2.344.331.

62

INTRODUCTION

allowing the original character to be used only for the word ran 'thus, so.' Characters so enlarged belong to a group called (5) shyngsheng or shyesheng 'phonetic compounds.' The original character Μ ran is called the 'phonetic' and the added part is called the 'signific,' which in the majority of cases is also the radical. (See § 3 below.) Similarly, woang 'a net,' is now written $3, enlarged by a signific associated with threads or strings, while the original character [S] is borrowed exclusively to write the homonymous word woang 'have not.' Besides the enlargement of a loan character, there is a second source of phonetic compounds. Words in every language acquire extended meanings. Thus, the word wen 'line, streak' is written with the ideograph jit· By extension (not by loan), the same word also has the figurative meanings of 'writing, literature, culture.' To distinguish in writing between the literal and the figurative meanings of the same word wen, a signific ^ is added to form the character %jSC, to be used in the literal meaning, leaving the original character for the figurative meanings only. Sometimes it is the other way around: the derived meaning has the enlarged character. Thus, the word fang means 'square' in the general sense and 'a square' as a place in a city. To differentiate between the two, the word is written for 'square' in general and W, with an additional graph ± which has to do with places, for 'square, market place.' It is as if one were to write Harvard Squerre, with a suggestion of terre in the second word. Thirdly, there is the group of pure phonetic compounds in which the signific is added to a phonetic which was never a loan or a semantic extension in the first place, but was expressly used for its sound to combine with the signific, as tarng 'sugar,' written f t , consisting of the signific relating to cereal foods and the phonetic tarng; or yu 'elm,' written Uft, consisting of 7|C the signific for 'tree' and the phonetic yu. Pure phonetic compounds are of relatively recent origin. Many characters of the preceding categories seem to be pure phonetic compounds because most people are not aware that the unenlarged character or 'phonetic' was used as a loan character or used in a related meaning in old texts for centuries before the enlarged form came into use. (Cf. pp. 15-16.) Phonetic compounds form by far the majority of all characters. When they were formed, whether through loan from unrelated homonymous words or by extension of meaning of the same word, the sound of the original character and that of the compounded character were identical or very similar. However, differences in sound between a compound and its phonetic, usually caused by interdialectal borrowing 3 of words, developed and increased, and it is now no longer practical to infer the present sound of a compound character from the present sound of its phonetic or the other ® Borrowing in the linguistic sense.

THE CHARACTERS

63

way around. But after the sounds of both the compound and its phonetic are learned, it will be of help to note the phonetic similarity. Finally, the traditional classification of characters recognizes a category called (6) joanjuh which we can translate as 'derivative characters.' Scholars differ widely as to what this class should include. Some regard it as the derivation of characters by graphic inversion. Others regard it as a change in the word itself when a modification of the sound is associated with a modification of meaning and a modification in the graph, as ^ heng 'propitious': $ sheang 'enjoy.' The membership of this class is both small and uncertain. 3. Radicals. — For purposes of reference, Chinese characters have been arranged according to their component parts. Various systems have been used through the ages. The system most widely used by the Chinese and by Western scholars of Chinese is that of the 214 radicals.4 In most eases, EL radical is the signific or the character minus its phonetic, since the majority of characters are phonetic compounds. Thus, in the character iff, i is the radical and J j is the phonetic. In the relatively small number of cases where the character is not phonetically formed, the analysis of the radical and the residual part is a matter of arbitrary convention, which is often at variance with the actual history of the character. Because of this, we should never make any scientific conclusion on the basis of the present scheme of radicals. The chief use of the radicals is for looking up unknown characters in a dictionary. Many foreign students of Chinese learn the numbers of the 214 radicals by heart. They can tell you that 75 is /fc, 149 is Ü", 187 is M, etc., a feat which never fails to impress the Chinese. No Chinese can even tell what the number of the radical A is, just as few English-speaking people can say offhand what the 17th letter of the alphabet is, though they have not the slightest trouble in locating words in a dictionary. It is, however, helpful to memorize the numbers of the most important radicals, since one-fourth of these will cover three fourths of all characters. Referring to the table of radicals on p. 71, we see that the order of the radicals is arranged by the number of strokes, beginning with 1 stroke for No. 1 —• and ending with 17 strokes for No. 214 Within each group having the same number of strokes, the order is purely conventional. Note that many of the radicals have one or more variant forms. With certain radicals, such as 9 or 85, the variants are more frequent than the main form. Radicals 140 and 162 always occur in their variant forms. The main 4

Variously called 'classifiers, signifies, determinatives, and keys.' We are simply following the usage of the majority. There is no danger, in the use of the term 'radical,' of any etymological connotation, since we are not using the term in any linguistic sense. In the present form, the list of 214 radicals was first used by Mei Ting-tso in his dictionary Tzü-hui, 1615 A.D.

64

INTRODUCTION

forms are kept, however, in their conventional positions in the list, since the variant forms do not have the same number of strokes as the main forms. In a dictionary arranged by radicals, the characters under each radical are arranged in the order of the number of strokes. For example, under radical 75 ^C muh 'tree, wood,' there is first the radical itself as character, then come characters with one residual stroke, as ^c wey 'have not (yet),' Φ been 'root,' next, characters with two residual strokes, as Ju, a surname, down to characters with as many as twenty-four residual strokes, as Μ ling 'sill.' For different characters under the same radical with the same number of residual strokes, dictionaries differ in their order of arrangement. The problem of finding a character is thus resolved to (1) classifying it under the right radical, and (2) counting the number of the residual strokes. For finding the radical, the following hints may be helpful: Learn by heart the twenty most frequent radicals, namely, 9, 30, 32, 38, 61, 64, 72, 75, 85, 86, 104, 118, 120,130,140, 142, 149, 157, 162, 167. More than 50% of all characters belong to one of these. Find out whether the character in question is a radical, for certain apparently compounded characters are themselves radicals. Thus, Jyt i t % Μ Μ Μ Μ· Μ are radicals. Try to divide the character into parts. A majority of characters can be broken down into a left-hand side and a right-hand side, in which case the left-hand side is most likely to be the radical, as in ffc & IÄ Mb- Important exceptions are radicals 18 variant, 59, 62, 66 variant, 69, 76, 163 variant, 172, 181, 196, which, when occurring laterally, occupy the righthand side, as ^ P J ü t ?!. Other characters can be divided into an upper and a lower part. While there is a greater variety of radicals which can occupy the lower half of the character, as in ^fc 1§Γ & M, the radicals λ Λ /λ » μ •«which occur at the top, have a greater number of characters under them. Finally, certain radicals enclose, or partially enclose, or are otherwise mixed up with, the residual strokes, as ffl Μ ίϋ Μ ^ whose radicals are respectively Ρ P^ f £ ^c While these rules will cover most of the cases, many irregular cases will have to be learned individually. For example, tH is under @ and not ^C, under ^ and not ic, IS under i t , etc. Most dictionaries have a list of difficult characters arranged under the total number of strokes. Some dictionaries, especially those prepared by foreigners, give characters under several apparently possible radicals with cross references to the right radical, e.g. under with the notation "see under Radical 109 Table 1 gives examples of positions which radicals may occupy.

TABLE

No. RAD.

L.

1.

EXAMPLES

OF P O S I T I O N S OF

U P DOWN OTHERS N o . RAD. L .

R.

1

—

/ C & O t

4

)

Φ

RADICALS R.

U P DOWN OTHERS

OÖÜD. £

09

@

^ I I

3


1«

J]

£

£Λ

JT

3 7|Γ # T A

1 5 ^

4RR

F I

I

IÖ/Λ

Λ

30 •

Α

I

Φ

^

&

M|.

I

3

ΐ

IS]

•

E

2 Θ £ * Τ

Θ

JI-JG

34 Ü 37

I

LEIF

HI

IS

31

1

IFF

£

it

40

- Χ

&

s & i c j f r ψ 40--^ 44

£

,Ρ

4 6 111 50

IF

53

Γ

> 1 M I

FP

UI

49

Ξ

F £

54

§

Μ

& & G 3 E

1 6 7 ^ ·

6 4 - F - F T

£

05

Vi E,

Tß

FT

72 Β

4J

5 7 ^ , 8 4

F '

&

JL

I I

T

E F F I

69 Π

BF

FÄ

Μ

Ä ß J I

7K

72

4

73

(F

ÖL

W

Φ

8 4 - ^ 9 G I . I L

102

ffl

104

f

Μ

Ψ

S

B&

96

&

GF

.F.

M FT

66

INTRODUCTION

4. Order and Number of Strokes. — In teaching children to write, Chinese teachers lay great stress on the order of strokes in which a character is written. There are both esthetic and practical reasons for this. When made with the brush-pen, characters will not have the right shape unless the order of the strokes is right. Moreover, since most everyday writing is in a running hand in which separate strokes become connected, a wrong order may result in unrecognizable forms. For example, in writing the character ;fc, the order is: upper horizontal stroke, vertical stroke, lower horizontal stroke. In rapid writing, the right end of the upper horizontal is joined to the top of the vertical by a short line. The resulting form however, is so familiar to the Chinese reader that he hardly notices any difference between this and the printed form ± . But if the order is wrong and the two horizontal strokes are made in succession, so as to make a form like then the result will be quite illegible. The general principle of making the strokes is from left to right and from top to bottom. In strokes which thin down to a sharp point, the direction is from the thick to the thin end, which in some cases involves making strokes from below upwards or from right to left, as { in Ϊ and in When a horizontal stroke and another stroke intersect, the former is usually made first. In a character containing a vertical stroke with two symmetrical parts on both sides, as in τΚ, the vertical stroke is made first, followed by the left-hand side, then the right-hand side. In complete enclosures, the left-hand wall is made, then the top and the right-hand side are made in one stroke, the content filled in, and the bottom stroke finally added. For examples, see characters B9 and 1® in the writing exercises for Lesson 1 in the Character Text, p. 136. In counting strokes, a horizontal line and a vertical line joining it from the right end down are counted as one stroke. Similarly an L-shaped combination of lines is usually counted as one stroke. These operations are sometimes combined, as in the last stroke of See 56 in the writing exercises for Lesson 1; also for Lesson 15 in the Character Text, p. 142. A time-saving device is to memorize the number of strokes in frequently recurring parts of characters, e.g. 6 strokes, 4 strokes, so that one can analyze quickly as 6 + 4 = 10 strokes, without counting every single stroke. There are many special cases involving the order and number of strokes which are illustrated in the writing exercises in the Character Text. The student should turn to those pages while reading the preceding descriptions for a second time. 5. Styles of Script. — The earliest known Chinese writing consisted of inscriptions on ox bones and tortoise shells, recording oracles of divination under the rulers of the Shang dynasty (ca. 1766 - ca. 1122 B.C.). Next in antiquity we find existing inscriptions, mostly on bronzes, of the Chou

67

THE CHARACTERS

dynasty (ca. 1122 - 246 B.C.). Characters written for the same word differed widely from age to age until finally, under the Ch'in dynasty (246206 B.C.), a system of characters known as 'seal characters' (or 'small seal,' as contrasted with the 'great seal' of Chou), was established. From the time of this system to the present day, there has been much less change in the main structure of the majority of characters, though the type and finish of the strokes have changed considerably as a result of the change from the stylus to the brush as a writing instrument. Current styles of writing consist of juanntzyh 'seal characters,' now used only in actual seals, lihshu or lihtzyh 'scribe's writing,' now occasionally used for ornamental purposes, kaeshu 'model or regular writing,' kebaantzyh 'printed characters,' 5 which are the same as the regular characters except for certain details to be noted below, shyngshu 'running hand' (literally 'walking style of writing') a more flowing and slightly abbreviated form of ordinary characters, and tsaoshu or tsaotzyh 'cursive characters' (literally 'grass characters') consisting of extremely abbreviated forms of characters for quick scribbling and for ornamental use. The accompanying cut in Table 2 gives some examples of the various types of characters. TABLE 2.

A

Β

c

D

$

f

&

* *

*

ik

Β ¥ •w π

I

*

* % * *

Ε

«

F ft

U # Cftv

Μ f*·

β

& ft % »es η * W *> *

&

STYLES OF CHARACTERS

Ί

*

*

Jtr

A *

Shang dyn. inscript. Chou dyn. inscript. juann

seal

lih

scribe

kae

regular

kebaan

printed

shyng

running

tsao

cursive

A is the word lai 'come' ( < Archaic leg), borrowed from a homonym meaning a kind of wheat. Β is the word wei ' t o do, to be,' originally a picture of a hand leading an elephant. C is the word shyng 'walk,' originally a picture of crossroads, later interpreted (wrongly) as a picture of 6

This category has no place in the traditional way of reckoning the styles of characters.

68

INTRODUCTION

steps. D is the word chyi 'his,' originally a picture of a dustpan. The present character for dustpan M, pronounced ji, is an enlarged form. Ε jianq ' descend' started with a picture of feet going down a flight of stairs. F wu started with a character meaning 'dancing' which was at an early age borrowed for a homonym meaning 'have not.' The seal form is enlarged by a signific, which was dropped later. The modern character for wuu 'dance' is in an enlarged form in which the phonetic IS occurs in the abbreviated form For the purposes of this course, the student would do well to concentrate on the regular style. This agrees in the main with the printed style except that the latter has small flourishes and exaggerated shadings like the serifs and shadings in the printed types of the Latin alphabet. In a relatively small number of cases, differences of structure exist. It is essential to know both the printed and the written styles, since radical indexes are based on the printed style and yet nobody writes in the printed style if the written style is very different. For example, the character has the radical iR (in variant form) on the top, but in the written form, as shown in the fifth character under B, Table 2, the radical cannot even be seen. Where the number of residual strokes differs in the two styles, the printed style is followed in counting. Thus, in -SP the number of residual strokes in ig" is 9 (counting the central dot) though the dot is rarely made when the character is written. Table 3 gives some common differences between the printed and written styles of characters and parts of characters. These differences are looked T A B L E 3 . COMMON D I F F E R E N C E S B E T W E E N P R I N T E D AND W R I T T E N FORMS

Α

V

λ

t ü t ü

^

/ ^ X

r

$J

l - l

l ü i G

%%

%

r

%

ö

ö

ä

^

c i d

THE CHARACTERS

69

upon as geometrical and non-significant and the characters are treated, not as variant characters for identical words, but as "identical" characters. (See § 6 below.) 6. Variant Forms of Characters. — Aside from the differences between the printed and written forms, many characters have important variations in structure which occur both in the printed and in the written style, as shown in Table 4. A variant form of a character may belong to one of the following categories: (1) restylized seal forms, in which the general pattern of seal characters is kept although the actual strokes are modernized; (2) normal variations, which are equally acceptable with the main form; (3) inscriptional forms, which are considered informal but in good taste; (4) popular characters, usually in the form of abbreviations; (5) popular differentiations not recognized by the old-school scholars; (6) simplified forms originally in good standing, but later regarded as popular abbreviations after their origins have generally been forgotten; (7) restylized cursive forms, that is, characters which follow the pattern of cursive characters but have regularized strokes; (8) dialect characters. The frequent use of archaic forms is considered a mannerism. Normal variations and inscriptional forms are both respectable usage. The forms from (3) to (7) are shunned by educated people of the older generation, but are accepted more and more by the younger generation. Dialect forms are rarely used, since dialects are seldom written in any case. They are included here under variants, since many of them can be identified with normal characters, as shown in the examples in the accompanying table. For a list of common variants of common characters, see Character Text, p. 10.

70

INTRODUCTION TABLE

Normal ^

4.

E X A M P L E S OF VARIANT

CHARACTERS

Variant

%

W

( < (
Ta.r

ta,

Tzar.men

Y

/ Ί

Ta,

Lii 4

Woo, Ding 1

—V Woo.mea

FIGURE 2.

THE

.MEN-FORMS

Ta.men

Nii.men Nii

Ta

Woo

Ta

/

ta, ta,

ta, ta,

\ Nii

Ta

Woo Woo.men

Ta

>

ta, ta,

Nii Woo

1

J

Ta

J

Ta

1-

Tzar.men

The broken lines indicate optional scope of inclusion.

ta, ta,

126

LESSON 2

Bu.sh .de, or Buduey (irrespective of the false statement being in the affirmative or negative form), and give the true statement by making the necessary changes. Use the proper pronouns. Example: Nii sh ren. Duey .le, woo sh ren. Jang San sh leangg ren. Bush, ta sh ig ren. (a) Woo gen ta sh leangg ren. (b) Woo gen nii yee.sh leangg ren. (c) Nii gen woo gen ta, tzar.men sh leangg ren. (d) Lii Syh gen ta gen woo, woomen sh san'g ren. (e) Lii Syh gen ta, ta.men sh san'g ren. (f) Nii gen ta, nii.men sh syhg ren. (g) Dih'i Keh, Dih'ell Keh, Dihsan Keh sh san'g ren. (h) Jang San Lii Syh sh ren. (i) Woo sh Jang San, nii sh Lii Syh, swoo.yii woo, Jang San, nii, Lii Syh, sh syhg ren. (j) Dih'i Keh, Dih'ell Keh, Dihsan Keh, sh syh-keh. (k) Nii.men lea gen woo.men lea, tzar.men sh syhg ren. (1) Ta.men lea gen woo.men lea, woo.men yee.sh syhg ren. 4. Answer the folbwing: (a) Ta sh sheir? (b) Lii Syh sh sherm.me? (c) Nii gen woo gen ta sh jiig ren .a? (d) Dih'i, Dih'ell, Dihsyh Keh sh jii-keh? (e) Leangg gen leangg sh .bu.sh san'g? (f) Dih'ig ren gen dihsan'g ren, ta.men sh jiig ren?

LESSON 2 THINGS A: What's this? What is this? B: This, you mean? A: Uh-huh, this. B: This is a table. A table is a thing. A: And what's that? What is that? B: Which one? That one? A: No, not that one. That one. B: Oh, that one? That's the door. The door is also a thing. A: What are these? B: These are writing instruments. These are a few writing instruments. A: What sort of things are those? B: I don't know. What sort of writing instruments are these? Do you know? A: I don't know what kind of writing instruments they are. I think they are pencils, aren't they? B: Probably not. I think they are writing brushes. Those are pencils. The brushes are here; the pencils are not here. A: If they are not here, where are they then? B: The pencils are there, I suppose.

THINGS

127

(g) Dih'ellg gen dihsyhg ren .ne? (h) Jang San sh dihjii .a? (i) Suoo.yii LiiSyh.ne? Wang Ell .ne? (j) Wang Ell .a! Woo gen Lii Syh sh leangg ren, lian nii tzar.men jiig ren .a? (k) "Nii Woo Ta 'Syhg R e n ' " sh dihjii-keh .ia? (1) Nii gen woo, tzar.men sh .bu.sh ig ren? 5. Translate into Chinese: (a) What is the first lesson? (b) How about the second lesson? And (don't use gen!) the third? (c) Two and two are four. Therefore two people and two people are four people, (d) Which (dih-jiig) man is Jang San? And Lii Syh? (e) You two men with me, one man, are three men. (f) That's right, two and one are three, (g) One and three are four. One, two, three, four — you are four men, not (bu.sh) three, (h) Jang San, Lii Syh, and he, they are three people, aren't they? (i) How many are two and two? (j) And two and three? 6. Supplementary statements and questions with reference to Figures 1 and 2.

DIH'ELL KEH DONG.SHI 1 A: Jeh.sh 2 sherm.me? Jeyg 2 sh sherm.me? B: Jeyg .a? 3 (Low pitch.) A: .Eng,4 jeyg. B: Jeh.sh i-jang 5 juotz. Juotz sh i-jiann 6 dong.shi. A: Nah.sh sherm .ne? Neyg sh sherm.me? B: Neeig? Neyg .a? A: Bu.sh, bu.sh neyg, sh neyg. B: .Oh,7 neyg .a? Nah.sh t-shann 8 men. Men yee.sh i-jiann dong.shi. A: Jey.shieg 9 sh sherm.me? B: Jeh.sh bii. Jeh.sh jii-jy 10 bii. A: Ney.shie sh sherm 11 dong.shi .ne? B: Woo bujydaw. 12 Jeh.sh .shie sherm bii .a? Nii jy.daw .bu.jy.daw? A: Bujydaw 13 sh sherm bii. Woo sheang sh chianbii 14 .ba? B: Bush, .ba? Woo sheang sh maubii.15 Ney.shieg sh chianbii. Maubii 16 tzay 17 jell; 18 Chianbii bu tzay jell. A: Bu tzay jell tzay naal .ne? 19 B: Chianbii tzay nail .ba?

128

LESSON 2

A: Where is there? B : There, where Wang is. A: Hey, Wang! Are the pencils there with you? Wang: Yes, I have them. A: How many pencils have you there? How many pencils have you? Wang: I have — one, two, three, four, five, six, seven — I have seven — no, no — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 — 1 2 3 4 5 6 — I haven't seven pencils, I have only six. These six are my pencils; these pencils are mine, not yours, nor his either. A: Goodness, what a floorful of paper here! B: What kind of paper? A: I don't know. I think it's newspaper. B : Newspaper? How many sheets of newspaper are there? A: There are — one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 — 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 — there are ten sheets. B: See what news there is. What news is there in the newspaper? A: I don't know what news there is. Has this place a lamp? Is there a light? Β : I think there is, I think there are two lamps here. Let's turn on the light and look, shall we? A: Where are those two lamps? — My goodness, What is this? B: This is a stool. A: Oh, no, it's a chair. Ah, here is the lamp. B: Turn on the light! A: The light's on. Look! Just look at these things! This is not newspaper; this is wrapping paper! B: Look, those are not pencils, nor brushes, nor pens, nor chalks: they are a few pairs of chopsticks!

NOTES 1. Dong.shi 'thing' in the sense of 'object, article,' as contrasted with shyh, shell, or shyh.chyng 'thing' in the sense of 'affair, event.' 2. Determinatives. — Demonstratives like jeh-, jey- 'this,' nah-, ney'that,' interrogatives like naa-, neei- 'which?' distributives like meei'each,' and a few other forms, together with all numerals i- 'one,' leang'two,' . . . , jii- 'how many,' — these are called determinatives. A determinative can be compounded with an AN to form a substantive, as jeyg 'this (one)' or 'this (thing),' after which a noun can be added, as jeyg ren 'this man.'

THINGS

129

A: Nail sh naal .a? B : Ney.bial, 20 Lao 21 Wang .nail.22 A: .ßh, Lao Wang! Chianbii tzay nii.nall .bu .tzay? Wang: Tzay .jell,23 tzay woo.jell. A: Nii.nall yeou24 jii-jy chianbii .a? Nii yeou jii-jy chianbii .a? Wang: Woo yeou —i-jy, leang-jy, san-jy, syh-jy, wuu-jy, liow-jy, chi-jy — woo yeou chi-jy — bu.sh, bu.sh — i, ell, san, syh, wuu, liow — i ell san syh wuu liow — woo mei.yeou 25 chi-jy chianbii, woo jyy yeou liow-jy. Jey-liow-jy sh woo.de 26 bii; jey.shie bii sh woo.de, bush nii.de, yee imsh ta.de. A: .Ai.ia, jell ι-dih .de jyy! 2 7 B: Sherm jyy .a? A: Woo bujydaw .a. Woo sheang sh bawjyy 2 8 .ba? B: Bawjyy .a? Yeou29 jii-jang bawjyy .a? A: Yeou — i-jang, leang-jang, san-jang, syh-jang, wuu-jang, liow-jang, chi-jang, ba-jang, jeou-jang, shyr-jang — i, ell, san, syh, wuu, liow, chi, ba, jeou, shyr — i ell san syh wuu liow chi ba jeou shyr — yeou shyr-jang. B: Kann.x 30 yeou sherm shinwen. Baw.shanq 31 yeou sherm shinwen? A: Woo bujydaw yeou sherm shinwen. Jell yeou .mei.yeou deng .a? Yeou deng .mei.yeou? 32 B: Woo sheang yeou, woo sheang jell yeou leang-jaan deng. Tzar.men kai.x 33 deng kann.x .ba. A: Ney-fecmg-jaan deng tzay naal .ne? — .Ai.ia, jeh.sh sherm.me .ia? B: Jeh.sh i-jang denqtz. A: .£h, bu.sh, sh i-baa34 yiitz. Ah, deng tzay jell. B: Kai-deng .ba! A: Deng kai 35 .le.36 Chyau.x! 37 Nii chyau.χ jey.shie dong.shi! Jeh bu.sh bawjyy; jeh.sh bau dong.shi .de jyy! 3 3 B: Nii chyau, ney.shieg bu.sh chianbii, yee bu.sh maubii, yee bu.sh gangbii, yee bu.sh feenbii: nah.sh jii-shuang 39 kuaytz!

Like numerals, demonstratives and other determinatives are normally followed by AN's. Exceptions are jeh 'this' and nah 'that,' which are sometimes followed directly by a noun or a verb, as jeh ren 'this man,' jeh.sh 'this is.' Note that jeh.sh and nah.sh are among the very few cases where subject and verb are bound together. The forms jey-, ney-, neei- are derived from the phonetic fusion of jeh-i 'this one,' nah-i 'that one,' naa-i 'which one?' In actual use, however, their use is not limited to cases of a single individual, thus, jey-leangjann deng 'these two lamps.' 3. When the particle .a (or .ia) is used for confirming an echo ('You mean . . .?'), the pitch of the second half of the sentence is extra low.

130

LESSON 2

This needs special practice, since a question like 'This one (you mean)?' would rise to extra high pitch in English. (Cf. Ex. 3, p. 139.) 4. .Eng is actually pronounced either as a nasalized vowel [§] or as a nasal consonant ng or m. When expressing agreement, it has a low pitch, like a Half 3rd Tone. 5. Jang, AN for tables, beds, also for sheets of paper. 6. Hiann, AN for words meaning 'thing, affair.' 7. .Oh in Chinese is pronounced more like English 'awe,' although it has a meaning similar to English 'Oh (I see).' 8. Shann, AN for men 'door.' 9. Shie is a measure word for an indefinite number or quantity, ' some, lot, amount.' Both the form jey.shie and jey.shieg are common. Since Chinese has no distinction of number, they should not be regarded as the plural form for jeyg. For example, in the next two sentences ' these are' takes the form of jeh.sh. 10. Jy, AN for stick-like things. 11. Note attributive use of sherm 'what kind of?' 12. In the negative of jy.daw 'know,' daw recovers stress and tone. 13. While sentences without subjects like 'Don't know what they are' represent a style of some speakers of English, they are common usage with all speakers of Chinese in all situations. 14. Chianbii 'lead writing instrument, — pencil.' 15. Mau 'fur, hair (of the body)'; 'feather.' Maubii 'writing brush.' 16. A word in the subject position usually has a definite reference, hence the translation 'the brushes.' (See p. 51.) 17. Tzay ' t o be at, in, on.' 18. Jell (< jeh -\—Z) 'this place, here.' The suffix -I (-.Hi in more formal style) here denotes locality. Similarly, nail (< nah + -I) ' t h a t place, there'; naal (< naa + -I) 'which place, where?' In Maubii tzay jell 'The writing brushes are here,' there is an apparent (but grammatically misleading) correspondence between tzay and 'are' and between jell and 'here.' Grammatically, the correspondence is as follows:

,

are are

tzay Λ v

jell , ' , this place

, in γ

I

here

Consequently, it is misleading to say, as students are often tempted to say, *Maubii1 sh jell, which would be saying 'The brushes are this place.' Once the real structure of such sentences is understood, there is no harm 1 An asterisk * before a word or expression indicates that it is non-existent in the language.

THINGS

131

in associating in one's mind jell with 'here,' nail with 'there,' and naal with 'where?' provided that the rest of the sentence is correctly formed. 19. In short sentences where the implication is clear, words like yaw.sh 'if,' jihran 'since,' etc. are usually omitted in Chinese 'If they are not here,' 'since they are not here,' 'Not being here. . . .' Note omission of subject in both clauses. If it were to be expressed, it would be necessary either to repeat chianbii 'pencils' (as in the next sentence) or say ney.shieg 'those,' since ta.men 'they' is not applicable to inanimate objects. (See p. 47.) 20. The suffix -Mal (bian ' side' + -I) also indicates locality, with more emphasis on the 'side' idea. Ney.bial 'that side, over there'; jey.bial 'over here'; neei.bial 'which side?' 21. Lao ' old' is used here as a prefix to surnames. The addition of Lao to a surname indicates a degree of familiarity like the dropping of 'Mr.' Hence the translation of Lao Wang by plain 'Wang.' 22. After nouns, locality is indicated by the suffix -.nail (for middle or distant objects or persons) or the suffix -.jell (for near ones). Ta.nall 'he-locality, where he is, chez lui'; woo.jell Ί-locality, where I am, chez moi'; juotz.nall 'table locality, where the table is, at the table'; Lao Wang .nail 'Wang's place' (at his home, where he stands, in his pocket, etc.). Here, again, it should be remembered that all forms with -.nail (or -.jell) are substantives. (See diagram under Note 18.) 23. Tzay.jell, tzay.nall, with -.jell or -.nail unstressed means simply 'present,' with no emphasis on the location. (See p. 109.) 24. Nii.nall yeou, lit. 'your place has . . .' 25. The negative of yeou 'have' is meiyeou, mei.yeou, or mei, the last not occurring in final position. 26. -.de particle of subordination or modification. Woo.de 'my, mine'; nii.de 'your(s)'; ta.de 'his, her(s),' less commonly 'its'; woo.men.de, tzar.men.de 'our(s)'; nii.men.de 'your(s)'; ta.men.de 'their(s).' 27. Jyy 'paper' is an unrelated homonym of jyy 'only.' The sentence is to be analyzed as 'This place has a fioorful of paper.' 28. Baw 'newspaper' (as something to read or as paper); bawjyy 'newspaper' (usually as paper only). 29. When yeou 'have' cannot be attached to any subject, it is really the universe that is supposed to 'have' what follows. In such cases, the corresponding English is 'there is, there are,' etc. 30. The letter χ stands for a repeated syllable. The common translation of kann.kann as 'look-see' as if it were a compound of two synonyms is grammatically wrong. Kann.kann is an abbreviated form of kann .i.kann 'take a look' where .i.kann is an AN for verbs, meaning 'once,' or Germ, 'mal, einmal.' A more idiomatic translation is 'just look' or just 'look.'

132

LESSON 2

31. Baw.shanq 'newspaper-top, on the newspaper, — in the newspaper.' Baw.shanq yeou shinwen 'newspaper-top has news, — there is news in the newspaper.' 32. These are examples of the close and open forms (Note 27, p. 124). 33. Kai.x may mean either 'just open' (Note 30) or 'open up,' the second syllable -.kai expressing the result of the action. 34. Baa, AN for things with handles (the back, in the case of a chair). 35. There is no voice in Chinese verbs and the direction of the action is to be inferred from the context. Here, since the light cannot turn on something else, Deng kai .le must mean 'The lamp is turned on.' (See also p. 54.) 36. .Le, particle indicating a new situation (from 'off' to ' o n ' of the light), or the new realization of an existing situation (a person entering a room which he left in a darkened state may return to say Ah, deng kai .le, 'Ah, the lamp is on,' though he does not know how long it has already been on). 37. Chyau 'look,' a little more lively and informal than kann. 38. Bau dong.shi .de jyy 'wrap things kind of paper, — paper for wraping things.' The modifying expression before .de can be one word or any number of words. Whereas a modifier in English may precede or follow the modified, in Chinese it always precedes, as: Lii Syh .de jyy bau dong.shi .de jyy bau chianbii .de jyy woo bau .de dong.shi woo bau dong.shi .de jyy bau dong.shi .de ren jell .de dong.shi baw.shanq .de shinwen tzay jell .de dong.shi

'Lii Syh's paper' 'wrapping paper' 'paper for wrapping pencils' 'the things I wrap' 'the paper I wrap things with' 'the person who wraps things' 'the things here' 'the news in the paper' 'the things which are here'

39. Jii-shuang 'several pairs.' In general, an interrogative word can be used in an indefinite sense. The context will determine which meaning applies. EXERCISES Do the exercises both orally and in writing as far as both forms are applicable. 1. Practice pronouncing words with difficult sounds: Initials in dong.shi, jeyg, juotz, i-jiann, i-shann, sheang, chianbii, tzay, chi, shinwen, chyau.x, shuang. Finals in juotz, men, jell, nail, naal, ney.bial, yeou, jyy, shyr. 2. Mark the whole text with tone signs (for those who have not yet mastered their tones).

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133

3. Comment on the following statements as to truth: (a) I-jang juotz, i-shann men, leang-jang denqtz, sh syh-jiann dong.shi. (b) Nii gen woo gen ta.men lea yee.sh syh-jiann dong.shi. (c) Nii gen juotz sh leang-jiann dong.shi. (d) Lao Wang yeou chi-jy bii. (e) Jell yeou shyr-jang bawjyy. (Answer according to the story.) (f) Ta.men yeou jii-jy chianbii gen maubii. (Not a question.) (g) Baw.shanq yeoushinwen. (h) Bau dong.shi .de jyy .shanq mei.yeou shinwen. (i) Jell yeou leang-san'g ('two or three') ren. (j) Wuu-shuang kuaytz sh shyrjiann dong.shi. (k) Chianbii bu tzay Lao Wang .nail. (1) Denqtz gen deng sh i-jiann dong.shi. 4. Answer the following: (a) San'g gen leangg sh jiig? (b) I-jang juotz gen san-jaan deng sh jii-jiann dong.shi? (c) Lao Wang yeou jii-jy chianbii .a? (d) Jell .de i-dih .de jyy sh sherm jyy .a? (e) Ta.men yeou j n - j a a n deng? (f) Nii chyau.x ney-jang bau dong.shi .de jyy .shanq yeou sherm shinwen. (g) Leang-shann men sh i-jiann dong.shi .bu.sh? (h) Nii tzay naal? (i) Jey-i-keh sh dihjii-keh? (j) San-jy gen wuu-jy sh jii-jy .a? (k) Nii yeou sherm bii .a? (1) Nii sheang sherm.me? 5. Exercises according to examples. — In these exercises a phrase or a sentence is given and some sentences based on it are to be made according to the example or examples shown. The original is to be spoken b y one student and the answer b y one or more students, possibly including the first one. The answers may be prepared in writing, and should be so prepared for these early lessons. B u t it should be borne in mind t h a t the exercises proper consist in the student's giving the answers orally in response to the sentences without looking at the notes. Examples: Given:

1st Student:

Answer: Woo bu.sh Jang

1st S: T a mei.yeou

maubii.

San.

2nd Student: Nii bu.sh Jang San sh sheir .ne? 1st Student: Woo sh Lii Syh. 2nd S: T a mei.yeou maubii yeou sherm bii .ne? 1st S: T a yeou chianbii.

(a) Baw bu tzay nail, (b) Tarn bu kai-men. (c) T a m bu kai-men. (d) Lii Syh mei.yeou shyr'ell-jy chianbii. (e) Jell .de ren mei.yeou maubii. (f) Jang San gen Lii Syh .de denqtz bu tzay nail, (g) Juotz.shanq mei.yeou denqtz. (h) Jell mei.yeou bawjyy. (i) N i i b u j y d a w woo sheang sherm.me. (j) Woo mei.yeou san-jy gangbii. (k) Jeyg bu.sh nii.de baw. (1) Jeyg bu.sh nii.de baw.

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LESSON 3

6. Change each statement into a question, first in close form, then in open form, then give an answer. Example: Given: Woo yeou chianbii.

Answer: Nii yeou .mei.yeou chianbii .a? Nii yeou chianbii .mei.yeou? Yeou, woo yeou chianbii.

LESSON 3 SPEAKING CHINESE A: I am (a) 2 Chinese, I am a Chinese. I speak Chinese, you speak Chinese, he also speaks Chinese — everyone of us speaks Chinese. Can you (people) speak Chinese? B: Yes, we can. You can, we also can, therefore you and we, we all can. A: Are you a Chinese? B: No, I am a foreigner. A: What country are you a native of? Where do you come from? B: As for me, I come from America, so I am an American. He comes from England, he is a man who comes from England, therefore he is an Englishman. A: Englishmen speak English and 13 Americans speak American, isn't that right? B: It's not like that, Englishmen speak English -— A: What do you mean by 'English'? B: English is simply the English language — as I was saying, Englishmen speak English, Americans also speak English. English and 'American ' are the same, you see. A: Do (you) the people of the two countries talk exactly alike? B: No, not exactly alike, it's not quite the same thing, there is however only a slight difference. Uh — what is meant by 'Chinese wen'? What kind of language is Chinese wen? In what way is Chinese wen different from Chinese language? A: There isn't any difference, there isn't any great difference, Chinese wen is simply the Chinese language. B: Well, why is it called both 'Chinese wen' and 'Chinese language,' then? A: Sometimes one says 'Chinese wen' sometimes one says 'Chinese language.' Sometimes one speaks one way, sometimes the other way.

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135

(a) Woo yeou ta.de bii. (b) Lao Lii tzay jell, (c) Juotz, yiitz, denqtz, deng, sh syh-jiann dong.shi. (d) Lao Jang yeou baw. (e) Nah.sh jii-shuang kuaytz. (f) Ta yeou shyr-jang bau dong.shi .de bawjyy. (g) Jey-leang-jang sh bau kuaytz .de jyy. (h) Woo kai .de men sh neyshann men. (i) Woo kai .de deng sh jey-jaan deng. (j) Jey-jang sh ta bau dong.shi .de jyy. (k) Ney-san-jang sh Wang Ell bau chianbii .de jyy. (1) Yeou ren.

DIHSAN KEH SHUO JONG.GWO-HUAH 1 A: Woo sh Jong.gworen,2 woo sh ig Jong.gworen. Woo shuo Jong.gwohuah, nii shuo Jong.gwo-huah, ta yee shuo Jong.gwo-huah — woo.men gehgehl 3 dou shuo Jong.gwo-huah. Nii.men huey 4 shuo Jong.gwo-huah .bu.huey .a? B: Huey, 5 woo.men huey. Nii.men huey, woo.men yee huey, suoo.yü nii.men gen woo.men, tzar.men dou huey. A: Nii sh Jong.gworen .bu.sh? B: Bu.sh, woo sh way.gworen.® A: Nii sh neei-gwo .de ren 7 .ne? Nii sh tsorng naal lai 8 .de ren 9 .ne? B: Woo .ia, woo sh tsorng Meei.gwo 10 lai .de,11 swoo.yii woo sh Meei.gworen. Ta tsorng Ing.gwo 12 lai, ta sh tsorng Ing.gwo lai .de, swoo.yii ta sh Ing.gworen. A: Ing.gworen shuo Ing.gwo-huah,13 Meei.gworen shuo Meei.gwo-huah, sh .bu.sh? B: Bu.sh tzemm 14 shuo, Ing.gworen shuo Ing'wen — A: Sherm jiaw 16 Ing'wen .a? B: Ing'wen jiow.sh 16 Ing.gwo-huah — woo shuo 17 Ing.gworen shuo Ing'wen, Meei.gworen yee shuo Ing'wen. Ing'wen, 'Meeiwen,' sh iyanq 18 ,d'£! 19 A: Nii.men leang-gwo ren shuo-huah,20 sh wanchyuan 21 iyanq .de .ma?22 B: Bu, bu wanchyuan iyanq, öw.sh wanchyuan i'yanq .de, jyy yeou ideal butorng 23 .jiow.sh.le.24 .E 25—-sherm jiaw 'Jongwen' .a? Jongwen sh sherm-wen .ne? Jongwen gen Jong.gwo-huah yeou sherm butorng .a? A: Mei sherm 26 butorng, meiyeou sherm dah butorng, Jongwen jiow.sh Jong.gwo-huah. B: .Ne.me weysherm 27 yow 28 jiaw 'Jongwen,' yow jiaw 'Jong.gwohuah' .ne? A: Yeou shyr.howl 29 shuo 'Jongwen,' yeou shyr.howl shuo 'Jong.gwohuah.' Yeou shyr.howl tzemm shuo; yeou shyr.howl nemm 30 shuo.

136

LESSON 3

Β: When does one speak one way and when the other way then? A: That I don't know. I have heard both kinds. I think it's probably like this: 'Chinese language' is something one speaks, 'Chinese wen' is something one writes. B : Oh, I see, now I understand, now I begin to understand!

NOTES 1. Jong.gwo 'middle-country, — China'; huah 'speech, words'; -huah 'language, dialect.' Jong.gwo-huah '(spoken) Chinese.' On the pitch of .gwo, see "104," pp. 108 and 110. 2. There is optional neutral tone on -ren in Jong.gwo0ren, Ing.gwo0ren, way.gwo0ren, and similar words. On the omission of ig, see Note 12, p. 123. 3. Reduplicated AN. — Geh, the stressed form of the general AN for individuals. A reduplicated AN {gehgeh), often with addition of the suffix -I {gehgehl), has a distributive sense, as gehgehl ren 'every man,' jangjang jyy 'every sheet of paper.' (See also p. 51.) Although dou is often translated by 'all' or 'every,' it is actually an adverb like 'in all cases, uniformly' and belongs to a following verb. 4. Huey 'can,' in the sense of 'know how to, have the skill to.' 5. Note that the answer {huey for 'yes') to question in the A-not-A form must be either Ά ' or 'not-A' and not Duey .le, Bu.sh, etc. — unless, of course, the main predicate Ά ' itself happens to be one of these words. The reason for this is that the A-not-A form of a question is essentially a disjunctive question, and since a choice (between A and not-A) has to be made, it would not make sense to agree or disagree with it. (See p. 59.) 6. Way.gwo 'outside-country, — foreign country'; way.gworen 'foreigner'; way.gwo-huah 'foreign language.' 7. Neei-gwo .de ren, lit. ' a man of which country?' 8. Tsorng occurs usually as the first verb in verbal expressions in series. Tsorng naal lai ' come from where?' 9. This is a .de construction (Note 38, p. 132) with a long modifier ' You are from-where-come kind of man, — you are a man who comes from where, — where do you come from?' 10. Meei 'beautiful,' here used to transliterate - m e - of 'America.' Meei.gwo 'Meei-country, — America, the United States.' 11. In a .de construction, the word after .de is often understood. In such cases, .de may either be omitted in the translation or translated by a substantive such as 'one, that which, -er.' Thus, tsorng Meei.gwo lai .de ren 'man who comes from America'; tsorng Meei.gwo lai .de ' one who comes from America.'

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137

Β: Sherm .shyr.howl tzemm shuo, sherm .shyr.howl nemm shuo .ne? A: Nah-woo bujydaw .le.31 Woo leang-yanql 32 dou ting.jiann.guoh.33 Woo sheang dahgay 34 sh tzemm.yanql .de: ' Jong.gwo-huah' sh shuo .de, 'Jongwen' sh shiee .de. Β: Oh, doong .le, shianntzay woo doong .le, shianntzay woo tsair 36 doong!

12. Ing.gwo ' Eng-country, — England'; loosely also 'Great Britain' and 'United Kingdom.' 13. Since Chinese has no distinction of number, this can be translated either as 'An Englishman speaks English' or as 'Englishmen speak English.' The question of number here does not arise in the mind of the Chinese speaker. Note that the 'and' in the English translation corresponds to nothing in the Chinese. The word gen cannot be used here since it cannot join predicates or sentences. 14. Tzem.m.me 'so' ('in this manner' or 'to this degree') alternates with the more formal jemm.me (< jeh + .me). 15. Jiaw 'call, is called, mean (by), is meant (by).' See Note 35, p. 132 on the absence of voice in Chinese verbs. 16. Jiow 'namely, simply, just.' 17. Woo shuo Ί say/ here used as Ί was saying (when you interrupted me).' 18. Iyanq 'one-sort, — same kind, same, alike, identical.' 19. Iyanq .de 'same sort of thing' (Note 11). The final particle .e (not the interjection .Sh) 'you know, you see, of course' is fused with the preceding .de into one syllable .d'e. 20. Shuo-huah 'speak-speech, — to talk.' Many types of action expressed by an intransitive verb in English are thus expressed by verbobject compounds. Other examples are shuey-jiaw ' sleep-nap, — to sleep'; dwu-shu 'read-book, — to study.' The clause Nii.men leang-gworen shuo-huah is the subject of sh: '(The way) you people of the two countries talk is. . . . ' 21. Wanchyuan 'completely, entirely, quite.' 22. The final particle .ma is added to a statement to change it into a question calling for agreement or disagreement. It leans a tiny bit more towards a dissenting answer and is therefore often used in rhetorical questions. A sentence ending in .ma has a generally high pitch (cf. Exercise 3.) 23. Butorng 'not-same, — different.' 24. .Jiow.sh.le is used as a compound particle, meaning 'that's the only thing, that's all that's to it.'

138

LESSON 3

25. . Ε — ' e r — , ' ' u h — s o u n d of hesitation. Being unstressed, the sound of .e has a neutral quality, as in 'soda' (p. 28). 26. On the use of an interrogative in an indefinite sense, see Note 39, p. 132. 27. Weysherm(.me) 'for what, — what for, why?' 28. Yow . . . yow . . . 'again . . . again . . . , — both . . . and . . . ,' limited to use before predicates only. 29. Yeou .shyr.howl 'there are times, — sometimes.' 30. Nemm(.me) 'so' ('in that manner' or 'to that degree'). I t is derived from nah + .me. .Ne.me 'Well, in that case,' is simply a weakened form of nemm.me; it usually retains the final -.me because of the usual pause of hesitation. Note that, although four combinations of meanings are possible with manner and degree combined with near and far reference, they are covered incompletely by English and Chinese words as follows: ^~"\Ileference Manner\. or degree^^\_

Near

Far

Manner

tzemm(.me) 'so, thus'

nemm{.me) 'so, thus'

degree

tzemm(.me) 'so, this'

nemm(.me) 'so, that'

When it is not important to distinguish between near and far reference, nemm{.me) is used. (See also Note 11, p. 123.) 31. The new situation expressed by .le is: 'Here is a question that stumps me.' 32. Leang-yanql 'two kinds.' Distinguish from leangyanq 'different.' 33. Ting 'listen'; -.jiann complement expressing successful perception; ting.jiann 'listen, resulting in perceiving, — hear.' Similarly, kann 'look'; kann.jiann 'see.' The complement -.guoh expresses the idea of 'did or have once before." Ting.jiann.guoh 'have heard once before.' It is not a sign of a past or perfect tense, since a verb expressing a past event does not always have the time indicated. 34. Dahgay 'great-outline, — in the main; probably.' 35. Cf. last sentence of Lesson 1. 36. (Exercise 3, Example.) A high-pitched sentence ending in .ma implies 'Is it true that (you understand Chinese)?' A low-pitched sentence ending in .a (or .ia when preceded by an open vowel) implies 'Did you say' or 'Am I repeating your statement correctly that (you understand Chinese)?' (Cf. Note 22.)

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139

EXERCISES 1. Answer the following: (a) Lao Syh sh neei-gwo .de ren .a? (b) Meei.gworen shuo shermyanql .de huah .ia? (c) 'Jongwen' gen ' Jong.gwo-huah' yeou sherm butorng? (d) Nii doong Jong.gwo-huah .bu.doong? (e) Nii huey shiee Jongwen .bu.huey? (f) Meei.gwo-huah gen Ing.gwo-huah sh wanchyuan tyanq .de .bu.sh? (g) Nii huey shuo neei-gwo .de huah? (h) Kann.x jell yeou jiig Jong.gworen, jiig way.gworen. (i) Woo yeou jii-jy chianbii, jii-jy maubii? (j) Shianntzay .ne? (k) Jell yeou jii-jaan deng jii-jang denqtz .a? (1) Ta sh .bu.sh ig huey shuo Jong.gwo-huah .de way.gworen .a? 2. Example: Given: Woo shuo Jong.gwo-huah.

Answer: Nii sh shuo Jong.gwo-huah .de, nii sh t.ge shuo Jong.gwo-huah .de ren.

(a) Jang San huey shuo Ingwen. (b) Nii sheang ('want to') shuohuah. (c) Woom bu doong Jong.gwo-huah. (d) Ta tsorng Jong.gwo lai. (e) Nii gen ta, nii.men tsorng naal lai? (f) Nii huey shuo leang-gwo .de huah. (g) Lii Syh yeou jyy. (h) Woo yow mei.yeou denqtz, yow mei.yeou deng. (i) Tajiaw Wang Ell. (j) Nii shuo sherm.me? (k) Lao Lii dahgay bu kann-baw. (1) Neyg way.gworen huey shuo Jong.gwo-huah. 3. Example: Given: Woo doong Jongwen.

(1) A: B: A: B: A: B: (2) A: B: A: B: A: B:

Answer: (only orally) Nii doong Jongwen .bu.doong? Doong, woo doong Jongwen. (High intonation.) Nii doong Jongwen .ma? Duey .le, woo doong. (Low intonation.) Nii doong Jongwen .a? Eh, woo doong. Ta doong Jongwen .bu.doong? Bu doong, ta bu doong Jongwen. Ta bu doong Jongwen .ma? Sh .de, ta bu doong. Ta bu Jongwen .a? .Eng, ta bu doong.

(a) Woo huey shuo Jong.gwo-huah. (b) Woo sh Meei.gworen. (c) Woo huey shuo 'i ell san syh.' (d) Jell yeou deng. (e) Woo jydaw nii tzay naal. (f) Tzemm shuo duey. ('Speaking this way is correct.')

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LESSON 4

(g) Tzar.men shianntzay shuo Jong.gwo-huah. (Use .ia instead of .a.) (h) Jeyg baw .shanq yeou Jong.gwo shin wen. (Use neyg under No. (2).) (i) Ta sheang lai. (j) Woo.men.jell yeou ren. (A. Nii.men.nall yeou ren

LESSON 4 TELEPHONING Main 3141 . . . Not 3747 — 3141, three thousand one hundred fortyone. . . . That's right. Listen! Listen! What's ringing? What sound is it? Is it a bell that's ringing? Is it an electric bell? It is? What electric bell? Is it the doorbell or the telephone bell? Where is the telephone? Which way do I go? 10 How do I go? Do I go this way or that way? Which side? This side or that side? Which door do I go by? Which door? The third door? Hello, hello, who is this? — Who is this, please? What is your name, please? Your name is —? What? Your name is what? Your name is Wang? Your first name, Mr. Wang, is —? Oh, you are just Wang Ell! I couldn't make out it was just you, I couldn't make out it was you! Why haven't you come to see me for such a long time? You did come? When did you come? What day did you come? What day of the week? Sunday or Monday? Today or yesterday? Was it yesterday? What time yesterday? Yesterday morning or yesterday afternoon? Two o'clock in the afternoon? Uh — how did you come? Did you walk here, take a car, or come by boat? Oh, you came by plane. What plane was it? When did it (or you) arrive here? It arrived at twelve o'clock? How is it that I did not see the plane? How is it that I did not hear the noise from the plane? Huh? What? What did you say? I cannot understand you. Please speak a little more slowly. Please speak a little more slowly. The plane — what? I cannot hear you clearly. Will you say it once more, please?

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141

.mei.yeou? . . .) (k) Ing.gwo-huah gen Meei.gwo-huah iyanq. (Use Jong.gwo-huah under No. (2).) (1) Repeat with sh iyanq .de instead of iyanq.

DIHSYH KEH DAA 1 DIANNHUAH 2 Tzoongjyu, 3 3-1-4-1, . . . Bu.sh 3-7-4-7 — 3-1-4-1, sanchian ibae syh.shyri-haw.4 . . . Duey.le. Ting! Nii 6 ting! Sherm sheang? Sherm sheng.in sheang? 6 Sh liengl 7 sheang .bu.sh? (High:) Sh diannliengl .ma? (Low:) Sh diannliengl .a? Naal .de diannliengl? 8 Sh menliengl .hair.sh 9 diannhuah .ia? Diannhuah tzay naal?· Tsorng naal tzoou? 10 Tzeem tzoou? Tzemm tzoou .hair.sh nemm tzoou .a? Tzoou neei-bial? Tzoou jey-bial .hair.sh tzoou ney.bial .a? Tzoou neeig men 11 .a? Dihjiig 12 men? (Low:) Dihsan'g men .a? .Uai,13 .uai, Nin naal? 14 — Nin sh neei-i-wey? 16 Gueyshinq 16 .a? Nin Gueyshinq .sh — Ar? Shinq 17 sherm.me? Shinq Wang .a? 18 Wang .Shian.sheng 19 Tairfuu 2 0 .sh —? .Oh, nii jiow.sh Wang Ell! 21 Woo mei 22 ting.chu.lai 23 jiow.sh nii, woo mei ting.chu sh nii .lai! 24 Nii tzeem 25 tzemm.shie 26 shyr.howl yee 27 mei lai kann 28 .woo29 .ia? Nii lai.guoh .ma? Nii sherm .shyr.howl lai .de? Neei-tian lai .de? Liibayjii? 30 Liibayryh .hair.sh Liibay'i .a? Jiel .hair.sh tzwol .a? Sh tzwol .ma? Tzwol sherm shyr.howl? Tzwol shanq.wuu 31 .hair.sh shiah.wuu .a? Shiah.wuu leang-dean jong 32 .a? .E — nii tzeem lai .de? 33 Sh tzooudawl 34 lai .de, sh tzuoh-che 35 lai .de, .hair.sh tzuoh-chwan lai .de? .Oh, nii sh tzuoh feiji lai .de! Jii-dean jong .de feiji? 36 Sherm .shyr.howl daw .de? 37 Shyr'ell-dean daw .d'a? Woo tzeem mei kann.jiann feiji .ne? Woo tzeem mei ting.jiann ney-jiah 38 feiji .de sheng.in .ne? Ar? Sherm.me? Nii shuo sherm.me? Woo ting.bu-doong.39 Chiing .nii mann.i.deal 40 shuo. Chiing .nii shuo-mann.i.deal.41 Feiji — sherm.me? Woo ting.bu-ching.chuu. Chiing .nii 42 tzay 43 shuo .i.biann.44 Fei — feiji 'wuh-dean'? Sherm jiaw 'wuh-dean' .a? 'Wuh-dean' sh sherm yih.sy? 45

142

LESSON 4

The pi — the plane 'missed the hour'? What do you mean by 'missed the hour'? What does 'missed the hour' mean? I see, 'to have missed the hour' is simply 'to have come late'? 'Missed the hour' simply means 'came late'? Oh, I see. Er — How about Lii? Has he come too? He says he wants me to do what? He wants me to go and do what? Do I understand that he wants me to go and see him today or tomorrow? Well, shall I go see him right away today, or wait until tomorrow to go, or until when? I think I shall be busy the next few days; I have business here and can't get away. You two gentlemen had better come to me, will that be all right? Oh, no, that's all right! Oh, no, it doesn't matter, that's all right! You better come to me. Good, that would be best! Yuh, yup, that'll be fine! Well, we'll see each other tomorrow. See you tomorrow! Goodbye! NOTES 1. Daa, with a basic meaning of 'strike, beat,' has many uses. Cf. Germ, schlagen. 2. Diannhuah 'electric-speech, — telephone'; Daa ig diannhuah 'to make a telephone call.' 3. Tzoongjyu 'main-bureau, — main exchange.' 4. Numbers. — Numbers from 1 to 100 are counted as follows: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

i ell san syh wuu liow chi ba jeou shyr

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

shyri shyr'ell shyrsan shyrsyh shyrwuu shyrliow shyrchi shyrba shyrjeou ellshyr

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

ell.shyri ell.shyr'ell ell.shyrsan ell.shyrsyh ell.shyrwuu ell.shyrliow ell.shyrchi ell.shyrba ell.shyrjeou sanshyr

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . . .

91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100

jeou.shyri jeou.shyr'ell jeou.shyrsan jeou.shyrsyh jeou.shyrwuu jeou.shyrliow jeou.shyrchi jeou.shyrba jeou.shyrjeou ibae

When followed by an AN, 2 is usually leang- instead of ell, but 12, 22, . . . , 92 are still shyr'ell, ell.shyr'ell, . . . , jeou.shyr'ell, even when followed by an AN. The use of ell before an AN is limited to measure words of old standing. When ellshyr, sanshyr, etc. are followed by an AN, shyr has the neutral tone, thus ell.shyrg ren, 'twenty people,' san.shyr-jang jyy, 'thirty sheets of paper.'

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.Oh, 'wuh-dean' jiow.sh 'lai-woan.l(e)' .a? 'Wuh-dean' jiow.sh 'laiwoan.le' .de yih.sy .a? .Oh, woo doong .le. .E — Lao Lii .ne? Ta yee lai .le .ma? Ta shuo ta yaw woo tzeem.me? 46 Ta shuo ta yaw woo chiuh tzuoh sherm.me? (Low:) Yaw woo jiel .huoh.jee miengl chiuh kann.χ .ta .ia? 47 .Ne.me woo jiel jiow 48 chiuh kann .ta .ne, .hair.sh miengl tzay 49 chiuh .ne, hair.sh jii.shyr chiuh .ne? Woo sheang woo jey-leang-tian 60 mei kongl; 51 woo jell yeou-shyh tzoou.bu-kai. Nii.men leang-wey 62 shanq 63 woo.jell lai .ba, .hao 64 .bu.hao? Mm,65 bwyawjiin!56 Ae! 57 ßwyawjiin, buy aw] inn! Hair.sh 58 nii.men shanq woo.jell lai .hao. .Hao, tzemmyanql .hao. .£lh, .eh, tzemmyanql hao-jyi.le! .Ne.me — Tzarm miengl tzay jiann .le.69 Miengl jiann, .ah! 60 .Tzay.jiann vx! 61 Ordinal numbers are formed by adding the prefix dih- (as we have seen) and/or the AN -haw, as dihsan, san-haw, or dihsan-haw. Haw cannot be used if there is already another AN, as dihsan'g men 'the third door.' 5. While nii or nii.men is usually not expressed in commands and requests, their use is much less rare than the use of 'you' before the imperative form of English verbs. 6. Sherm sheng.in sheang, lit. 'What sound sounds?' 7. Liengl (< ling + I) '(small) bell.' Be careful to pronounce the vowel with simultaneous nasality and curling of the tongue: [li3r]. 8. Naal .de diannliengl, lit. 'electric bell of what place?' 9. On .hair.sh, see Note 47. 10. Tsorng naal tzoou, lit. 'by way of where go?' 11. I-shann men means 'a door' as a physical object; ig men means 'a door' either as a physical object or in the sense of 'a doorway.' 12. Dihjiig men, lit. 'number-what door, which-eth door?' 13. Uai 'Hello' in telephoning or in hailing someone, 'Hey, you there!' Not used for the greeting 'Hello!' 14. Nin 'you,' polite form, used only in the Peiping region. Nin naal 'you (are) where?' Since telephone subscribers in China are regarded as residences or organizations, the usual first question to ask is 'What place are you?' rather than 'Who are you?' or 'Who is this?' 15. The polite form for -g is -wey, rendered by 'please' in the translation of the sentence. 16. Guey 'noble'; 'expensive'; 'your* (honorific form). Shinq 'surname'; 'to have the surname of.'

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17. Shinq, here used as a transitive verb. 18. Warning! After Wang, the particle .ba Ί suppose?' should be avoided as Wang .ba would be homonymous with wang.ba 'cuckold,' a term of abuse. The same particle should be avoided after the syllable ji, because of homophony with the word for 'male organ.' 19. Shian.sheng, lit. 'first born,' — 'teacher'; 'gentleman'; 'sir'; .Shian.sheng (with neutral tone both in shian and in sheng) 'Mr.,' also applied to professional women. 20. Chinese Names. — Every Chinese has a shinq 'surname,' inherited from his father. (Most surnames are monosyllabic and are bound words.) Then he has a ming.tzyh ' (formal) name' (of one or two syllables), his individual name, used in school, in business, and at law. Finally, he has a haw, variously translated as 'style' or 'courtesy name,' used in social intercourse. To ask somebody's haw, however, the honorific form tairfuu should be used. 21. The other man turns out to be one whom the first speaker knows well enough to call him familiarly Wang Ell 'Wang Number Two (among his brothers).' 22. Mei, mei.yeou, 'have not, did not.' 23. Ting.chu.lai 'listen with the result of "out," — make out (by listening)·' 24. The complement -.chu.lai 'out' is often separated by an inserted object, in this case the clause sh nii ' (that it) was you.' 25. Tzeem ' how? how is it that?' Note that it can either follow or precede the subject. 26. Tzemm0shie 'such a lot of, so much.' 27. Yee 'too, even (for such a long time).' 28. Kann 'see' in the sense of 'call on, look up.' 29. A pronoun after a verb is in the neutral tone, unless it is emphasized for a contrast. 30. Liibay 'week.' The Chinese week, which begins with Monday, is as follows: Liibay'i Liibay'ell Liibaysan Liibaysyh Liibaywuu Liibayliow Liibayryh 'Monday' 'Tuesday' 'Wednesday' 'Thursday' 'Friday' 'Saturday' 'Sunday' Sunday is also called Liibay or Liibaytian

31. Shanq.wuu 'morning, forenoon.' 32. Jong ' (large) bell'; 'clock'; -deanjong 'point (of) clock, — o'clock,' -dean being a measure word. 33. Nii (sh) tzeem lai .de, lit. 'You (are) one who came how?' 34. Tzoou-dawl 'walk-road, — to walk' (Cf. shuo-huah, Note 20, p. 139.) 35. Tzuoh ' sit';'ride'; che ' vehicle.' The word che is always used when it is not necessary to specify what kind of a vehicle is meant.

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36. Jii-dean .defeiji, lit. 'plane of what o'clock?' 37. The last few sentences all refer to past events about which some specific points were involved. In such cases, the .de form is the favorite form used. Nii .sh leang-dean jong daw .de 'You are one who arrived at two o'clock' similar to, but a little less emphatic than ' I t was at two o'clock that you arrived.' 38. Jiah, AN for airplanes and machines. 39. Potential Complements. — The usual way of expressing 'can' or ' cannot' when there is a compound verb consisting of a main verb and a complement is to insert -.de- for 'can' and -.bu- for 'cannot.' Thus, kann.de-jiann 'can see'; kann.bu-jiann 'cannot see.' Ting.de-doong 'can understand (from listening)'; ting.bu-doong 'cannot understand.' (See also p. 44.) 40. Mann 'slow, slowly,' mann.i.deal 'slow by a little, a little more slowly.' 41. Mann.i.deal is in an adverbial position in the first sentence and in a complement position in the second sentence. The former emphasizes the manner or appearance and the latter the result. The difference is, however, rather slight in this case. 42. Chiing nii '(I) request you.' Nii can be omitted, in which case chiing corresponds in use to the word 'please.' 43. Tzay 'again,' homonymous with tzay, 'to be at.' 44. Biann 'number of times,' AN for verbs. (See 4(d), p. 46.) 45. X sh sherm yih.sy, lit. 'X is (of) what meaning?' is the normal way of asking the meaning of a word, and the answer to that, as exemplified in the next sentence, is X sh (insert meaning here) .de ayih.sy. Since this is an unusual use of .de, it would be advisable for the student to learn the formula just as it is. It is really like the use of 'of' in 'the continent of Asia.' 46. Tzeem.me here is an interrogative verb 'do what?' 47. Disjunctive and Non-disjunctive ' Or.' — The written sentence 'Are you going today or tomorrow?' is ambiguous, (a) Spoken with a rising intonation on 'today' (with or without a pause) and with a falling intonation on 'tomorrow,' it is a disjunctive question and the person answering is expected to make a choice between 'today' and 'tomorrow.' (b) If the same words are spoken with a gradually rising intonation with no pause, then it is a yes-or-no question and the person answering is expected to say 'Yes (I am going today or tomorrow)' or 'No (I am not going either today or tomorrow).' (See also p. 58.) In Chinese, different words are used for the two kinds of 'or's.' 0Hair.sh (or simply .sh) is used in the first case, while 0huoh.jee (alternating with οhuoh.sh, .he.je, and .he.sh) is used in the second. Thus, Nii yaw chianbii .hair.sh gangbii? ' Do you want a pencil or a pen? (which do you want?)'

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Nii yaw chianbii .huoh.jee gangbii .bu.yaw? ' Do you (or do you not) want a pencil or a pen?' Note that in a statement — unless it contains an indirect disjunctive question — ' or' will always be translated by .huoh.jee (or one of its variants). 48. Jiow 'immediately, right away.' 49. Tzay 'again/ here used like tsair (last sentence of Lesson 1). .Hair.sh miengl tzay chiuh ' or, again, go tomorrow, — not go till tomorrow.' 50. Jey-leang-tian, lit. 'these two days.' Like 'a couple' in English, the numeral leang- plus AN can also be taken in the general sense of 'a few.' 51. Mei konql 'have no leisure.' Kong 'empty,' konq 'unoccupied,' honql 'unoccupied space or time.' 52. Leang-wey is simply the polite form for leangg, here translated as ' two gentlemen' (though also applicable to two ladies or one lady and one gentleman). 53. Shanq 'up'; 'go up'; 'go to.' Shanq woo.jell lai 'to my place come.' 54. Hao 'good'; 'all right.' In the latter sense, especially when used interjectionally, it has a Half 3rd Tone or neutral tone. (See p. 50.) 55. Mm, a nasal labial sound in a long 3rd Tone (often with a falling ending after the rise), interjection for emphatic disagreement. 56. Buyawjiin 'not important, — it doesn't matter.' 57. Ae! (often with a fall after the 3rd Tone), interjection of disagreement or disapproval. 58. Hair.sh 'after all it is (a case for) —.' Hair sh X .hao 'After all, X is better.' 59. This .le indicates that 'we have come to the new situation of stopping our conversation till tomorrow.' 60. This interjection .ah, separated from the sentence by a pause (sometimes with a glottal stop), softens a command, request, or greeting. 61. The greeting Tzay-jiann vx is often extremely underarticulated so as to sound like tzeyanzeyan. (The abbreviation vx stands for two syllables repeated.) The greeting Tzay-jiann is rarely used alone. It is either repeated (without pause) or followed, after a pause, by the interjection .ah! 62. Exercise 1(h). Here is a case of the S-P predicate (p. 35): 'As for you, the telephone is what number, — what is your telephone number?' Insertion of .de after nii would make the sentence more like the English. EXERCISES 1. Answer the Following: (a) Nii ting, sh menliengl .hair.sh diannhuah .ia? (b) Wang Ell shinq sherm.me? (c) .Ne.me Lii Syh .ne? (d) Tzwol Liibayliow, jiel

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Liibayjii .ne? (e) Miengl .ne? (f) Jong.gwo yee yeou feiji .mei.yeou? (g) Ing.gwo feiji hao hair.sh Meei.gwo feiji hao .a? (h) Nii diannhuah 62 sh jii-haw? (i) Tsorng Liibaysan daw Liibayliow yeou jii-tian? (j) Jiel Liibaysan. Lao Lii shuo, 'Lao Jang, woo jiel mei konql shanq nii.jell lai, woo miengl tzay lai .ba?' .Ne.me nii sheang Lao Lii neei-tian shanq Lao Jang.nall .chiuh .ne? (k) Ta yaw woo jiel .he.je miengl lai .a? (1) Nii shuo .de sh Meei.gwo-huah .hair.sh Ing.gwo-huah .ia? 2. Practice in counting numbers: (a) Count orally from one to one hundred. (Passing tempo 80 seconds.) (b) Count orally by fives: i-wuu, i-shyr, shyrwuu, ellshyr, ell.shyrwuu, sanshyr, . . . jeou.shyrwuu, ibae. (20 seconds.) (c) Count from one to forty, using the AN - g : ig, leangg, san'g, . . . shyrg, shyrig, shyr'ellg, . . . ell.shyrg, ell.shyrig, ell.shyr'ellg, . . . (50 seconds.) (d) Write out and count orally from, one to forty using the AN -baa. Be careful to make the usual changes in the 3rd Tone. Make a full pause after each baa. (60 seconds.) (e) Count dih'i, dih'ell, dihsan, . . . dihsyh.shyr. (60 sec.) (f) Count the hours: I-dean jong, leang-de&n jong, . . . shyr'ell-dean jong. Repeat without jong. (20 seconds.) 3. (a) Example — Tzwol Liibayryh, jiel Liibay'i, miengl Liibay'ell. Complete same form starting from each of the other six days of the week. (b) Example — Tzwol sh i-haw, jiel sh ell-haw, miengl sh san-haw. Complete same form starting from the fourth, seventh, tenth,. . . twenty-fifth, twenty-eighth, and twenty-ninth. 4. Fill out the blanks: (a) Woo ting.jiann sheang, swoo.yii woo shanq .nail .chiuh kai (b) Bu.sh diannhuah sheang, swoo.yii woo bu shanq diannhuah (c) Liibay'i sh z-haw, Liibay'ell sh haw, swoo.yii Liibayryh sh haw. (d) Tsorng Jong.gwo lai de baw .shanq yeou Jong.gwo .de , tsorng Ing.gwo lai .de baw .shanq yeou (e) Nii sh tzuoh-chwan lai .de tzuoh feiji ? (f) Deng tzay jell. Denqtz bu tzay jell, denqtz tzay (g) Jiel chiuh miengl chiuh dou .hao. (h) Jiel bu kai-men, miengl kai-men .ne. (i) Nii jy.daw .bu.jy.daw ta shianntzay jiow lai miengl tzay 4 9 lai .a? (j) Woo ta jiel jiow (k) Nii yaw che .lai .ne, yaw tzuoh .lai .ne? (1) .lai tzuoh .lai mei sherm butorng.

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5. Example: Given: Wuh-dean = lai-wan.le

Answer: Sherm jiaw wuh-dean .a? Wuh-dean sh sherm yih.sy .a? Wuh-dean jiow.sh 'lai-woan.le' .de yih.sy.

(a) Sheir? = sherm ren? (b) Tzar.men = nii gen woo, .huoh.jee nii.men gen woo.men. (c) Woo.men = woo gen ta, .huoh.jee woo gen ta.men. (d) Sh .bu.sh = sh, hair.sh bush, (e) Yeou .mei.yeou = yeou, hair.sh mei.yeou. (f) Chyau.x = kann.x. (g) I-shuang = leangg. (h) Woo.men gehgehl = woo.men renren. (i) Huey shuo = jy.daw tzeem shuo. (j) Ing'wen = Ing.gwo-huah. (k) Butorng = bu iyanq. (1) Doong = jy.daw sh sherm yih.sy.

LESSON 5 UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, FRONT, BACK, AND MIDDLE A: 'On the desk' means 'on top of the desk.' O n the chair' means 'on top of the chair.' There are books on the desk, there are one, two, three, . . . there are ten-odd books; therefore the books are on the desk. There are no books on the chair; therefore the books are not on the chair. There is a door in (lit. 'on') the wall; therefore the door is in the wall. B: Is the door above the wall? A: No, men tzay chyang.shanq simply means that it is where the wall is, it does not mean that it is above the wall. Β: I see. A: Well — the opposite of 'above' is 'below.' Under this book are several sheets of paper, under the paper is the desk, and under the desk is the floor. There are newspapers under this chair. There is writing on the newspapers. Look, there is writing on the newspapers. B: Yeah, there's writing on the newspapers. A: There is no writing on the white paper. Now I write a few characters on the paper, I write a few words. Now there is writing on the paper, do you see it? B: Yes, I see it, I see that there is writing there now. A: There is a blackboard on the wall here; there is no writing on the blackboard. See, I write some characters on the blackboard, I write a couple of characters on the blackboard. Now there is writing on the blackboard, too.

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6. Translate into Chinese: East (Dongjyu) 5199. That's right. Hello! Is this Mr. Wang? Which Mr. Wang is this? Mr. Wang Two or Mr. Wang Three? What? I can't hear clearly what you say. Will you talk more slowly, please? What? Aren't you Mr. Wang? (Use .ma) You are not Mr. Wang? (Use .a, low pitch.) Oh, it's (just) Jang San! I didn't know 'twas (just) you. Why didn't you come and see me yesterday? Huh? What? You did? When did you come? Did you come today? (.de .ma) You came today? (.d'a) What did you ride when you came? ('You ride what come .de?') Did you come in the morning or in the afternoon? How about Lii Syh? Didn't (mei) he come with you? He said he was too busy these days? (.a, low pitch.) Oh, I see, now I begin to see what you mean. Well, see you tomorrow. Goodbye!

DIHWUU KEH SHANG SHIAH TZUOO YOW CHYAN HOW 1 JONGJIALL A: Juol.shanq 2 jiow.sh juotz .de shanq.tou.® Yiitz.shanq 4 jiow.sh yiitz .de .shanq.tou. Juol.shanq yeou shu,5 yeou t-been, hang-been, sanbeen, . . . yeou shyrjü-been shu; swoo.yii shu tzay juol.shanq.' Yiitz.shanq mei shu; swoo.yii shu bu tzay yiitz.shanq. Chyang.shanq yeou men; sitoo.yii men tzay chyang.shanq. B: Men tzay chyang .de shanq.tou .ma? A: fiu.sh, 'mentzay chyang.shanq' jiow.sh 'tzay chyang.nall' .de .yih.sy, 6M.sh 'tzay chyang .de shanq.tou' .de .yih.sy. B: .Oh. A: .Ne.me — shanq.tou .de dueymiall 7 jiow jiaw dii.shiah.8 Jeyg shu .de dii.shiah yeou jii-jang jyy, jyy dii.shiah sh 9 juotz, juotz dii.shiah sh dih. Jey-δαα yiitz dii.shiah yeou baw. Baw.shanq yeou tzyh.10 Nii kann, baw.shanq yeou tzyh. B: ,£h, baw.(s)hanq 11 yeou tzyh. A: Bair-jyy .shanq mei tzyh. Shianntzay woo tzay jyy.shanq shieetzyh, shiee jiig tzyh. Shianntzay jyy.shanq yeou tzyh .le, nii kann.jiann .le .ma? Β: £έ,12 woo kann.jiann .le, woo kann.jiann yeou tzyh .le. A: Jell chyang.shanq yeou i-kuay 13 heibaan; heibaan.shanq mei.yeou tzyh. Nii kann, woo tzay heibaan.shanq shiee-tzyh, tzay heibaan.shanq shiee .leangg 14 tzyh. Shianntzay heibaan.shanq yee yeou tzyh .le.

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Β: Which hand do you write with? Do you write with your right hand or with your left hand? Which hand is it that you write with? A: I write with my right hand, I cannot write with my left hand. B: Say, I can. Look, I can write with my left hand. A: But you don't write well (with it), you see. You look at youl B: (Laughs.) I don't write well. A: Well, you know, in writing Chinese you write from top right-hand side down. When you write foreign words, however, then it is different. B: How are foreign words written then? A: Foreign words are written from the top left-hand side toward the right. Β: I see. A: Now the desk is in front of me, in front of me there is a desk. The chair is back of me, in back of me there is a chair. As for me, I am between these two things. Between the desk and the chair is me. Now I walk to the back of the chair, then the chair is in front of me. Again, I walk to the front of the desk, now the desk is between me and the chair. B: Is this book black or white? Is it a black book or a white book? A: As for this book, the outside is black, but the inside is not black, the inside is not all black. B: How is that? A: Because the paper of the book is white paper, you see! It's only the writing on the paper that's black; that's why the outside and the inside of the book are not the same. B: That's right, they are not the same. Uh — are we now outside or inside? A: We are inside, of course. B: Inside of what? A: Inside the building, inside a building, also inside a room, inside a classroom. Β: I see. When people talk outside the classroom, can those inside the classroom hear them? A: I don't think they can. Outside: Iu, yu, yeu, yuh! A: But sometimes perhaps you hear a little too. Outside: Tu, twu, tuu, tuh! A: Listen, there are people shouting outside, there are people shouting loudly. Outside: Mha, ma, maa, mah! Β: I don't think so, they are having a class in another classroom, I guess.

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B: Nii na neei-jy shoou shiee-tzyh 16 .a? Nii na yowshoou 16 .hair.sh na te woo. shoou 17 shiee-tzyh .a? Nii sh na neeig shoou shiee-tzyh .d'a? A: Woo .ia, woo sh yonq yow.shoou shiee-tzyh .de, woo fruhuey yonq tzuoo.shoou shiee-tzyh. B: f),18 woo huey. Nii kann, woo neng 19 na tzuoo.shoou shiee-tzyh. A: Kee.sh nii shiee .de buhao 20 ,έ.21 Nii chyau .nii! B: .He.he,22 shiee .de buhao. A: .E— nii jy.daw shiee Jong.gwo-tzyh sh tsorng shanq.tou yow.bial wanq 23 dii.shiah shiee .de. Shiee way.gwo-tzyh .de .shyr.howl .ne, nah jiow butorng .le. B: Way.gwo-tzyh sh 24 tzeem shiee .de .ne? A: Way.gwo-tzyh sh tsorng shanq.tou tzuoo.bial wanq yow shiee .de. Β: .Oh. A: Shianntzay juotz tzay woo.de chyan.tou, woo chyan.tou yeou .jang 25 juotz. Yiitz tzay woo.de how.tou, woo 26 how.tou yeou baa yiitz. Woo .ne, woo jiow tzay jey-leang-jiann dong.shi .de jongjiall.27 Juotz gen yiitz .de jongjiall sh woo. Shianntzay woo tzoou .daw yiitz how.tou,28 .ne.me yiitz jiow tzay woo chyan.tou .le. Woo yow tzoou .daw juotz .de chyan.tou, shianntzay juotz tzay woo gen 29 yiitz .de jongjiall .le. B: Jey-beel shu sh hei .de 30 hair.sh bair .d'a? Sh beel hei-shu 31 hair.sh beel bair-shu .a? A: Jey-been shu way.tou hei, kee.sh lii.tou bu hei, lii.tou bu chyuan.sh 32 hei .de. Β: Tzeem .ne? A: Inwey shu .de jyy sh bair-jyy Jyy.shanq .de tzyh tsair sh hei .de .ne; swoo.yii shu .de way.tou gen lii.tou bush iyanq .de. Β: .£h, lii-way 33 bu iyanq. .E — tzar.men ren 34 shianntzay tzay 35 way.tou hair.sh tzay lii.tou .a? A: Tzar.men tzay lii.tou .a? B: Tzay sherm .de lii.tou? A: Tzay farngtz.lii, tzay i-suoo farngtz 36 .lii.tou, yee.sh tzay i-jian utz .lii.tou, tzay i-jian kehtarng 37 .lii.tou. B: .Oh. Ren tzay kehtarng way.tou shuo-huah, kehtarng lii.tou .de ren ting.de-jiann .ting.bu.jiann .a? A: Woo sheang 38 ting.bu-jiann. Way.tou. Iu, yu, yeu, yuh! A: Kee.sh yeou shyr.howl yee sheu 39 ting.jiann ideal. Way.tou. Tu, twu, tuu, tuh! A: Nii ting, way.tou yeou ren raang, yeou ren .tzay.nail dashengl 40 raang .ne.41 Way.tou: Mha, ma, maa, mah! B: Bush .ba? Sh bye.de 42 kehtarng.lii .tzay.nail shanq-keh 43 .ne .ba?

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NOTES 1. Shanq, shiah, tzuoo, yow, chyan, and how are normally bound words. In this heading, they are mentioned as special terms for discussion, in which case any monosyllable can be hypostatized as a free word. Note that in reading the title, no pause is necessary between terms. 2. Localizers. — This lesson deals chiefly with localizers, also called postpositions. A localizer is a bound word forming the second component of a subordinate compound, resulting in a time or place word. In translation, however, it usually involves the use of a preposition (p. 53). Thus: Form Juol.shanq Utz.lii Yiitz-how.tou Jyy-dii.shiah Hei.shiah

Structure 'desk-top,' 'room-inside,' ' chair-backend,' 'paper-bottom,' 'dark-below,'

Translation 'on the desk.' ' in the room.' 'behind the chair.' 'under the paper.' 'under darkness, at night.'

The suffix -.nail is a general localizer. When it is not necessary to specify whether the relation is 'on' or ' i n ' or 'beside' or something else, then -.nail (or -.jell for near reference) is used, as juotz.nall 'desk-place, — at the desk.' A one-syllable localizer is always bound, while a two-syllable localizer can occur as a free word, as shanq.tou mei ren 'top-end has no people, — there is nobody up there'; juolz .de yow.bial 'the right side of the desk.' 3. The noun suffix -.tow ( < tour 'head, end') is less frequent than -tz. 4. Note that juo- (or juol-) can be used before -.shanq, but that the full word yiitz must be used before -.shanq. 6. ' There-is-A-on-B ' Forms. — In general, ' There is A on (at, in, etc.) B' takes the form of B.shanq yeou A, lit. 'B-top has A.' When the location is extended to the whole universe, then it need not be specified, hence Yeou A ' (the universe) has A, — there is A.' 6. When tzay precedes noun + localizer, it can be translated by 'to be' or left untranslated according to the following conditions: (a) If it is a main predicate, the verb 'to be' must be expressed, as Shu tzay juol.shanq 'The book is on the desk.' Jyy tzay yiitz .de dii.shiah 'The paper is under the chair.' (b) If tzay + noun + localizer occurs before another verb, no verb ' to be' will appear in the translation, as Τ a tzay jyy.shanq shiee jiig tzyh 'He writes a few words on the paper.' 7. Duey 'to match'; 'correct'; 'to face'; 'toward'; 'opposite.' Miall (< miann + -I) 'face, side.' Dueymiall 'opposite side.'

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8. Dii.shiah (often weakened to dii.shie and dii.hie) 'bottom-down, — below.' 9. It would also be possible to use yeou 'there is' here. Jyy dii.shiah sh juotz means ' It is understood that there is something under the paper, and it is a desk.' Jyy dii.shiah yeou juotz means 'There might or might not be anything under the paper, but actually there is something — a desk.' Sh 'is' tells what it is, while yeou 'there is' tells whether there is anything. 10. Tzyh 'word'; 'character'; 'writing.' 11. In rapid speech, the localizer -.shanq is underarticulated, sounding like -.ranq. 12. A full 3rd Tone on the vowel e forms an interjection for hearty agreement: 'You are quite right.' 13. The AN -lcuay is used with words for things in blocks, lumps, masses, and pieces of woven things. 14. On the use of .leangg in the sense of ' a few,' see Note 50, p. 146. 15. Verbal Expressions in Series. — When two phrases, especially of the verb-object type, occur in succession, the first can often be translated by an adverbial phrase. Thus, na yowshoou shiee-tzyh ' t a k e right hand write words, — using the right hand, write words, — to write with the right hand.' (See pp. 38-39.) On the use of a verb + object construction (shiee-tzyh) for an action denoted by an intransitive verb in English ('to write'), see Note 20, p. 137. 16. Omission of Possessive Pronoun. — In translating woo yonq yowshoou shiee-tzyh as Ί write with my right hand,' note that it is the English idiom that is peculiar in requiring the possessive my, since obviously I do not write with your hand. In general, the possessive is used only when necessary for clearness. 17. In the series of syllables tzuooshoou shiee-tzyh, the first two would normally both change into the 2nd Tone. Here, because of the contrasting stress on tzuooshoou is weakened into a Half 3rd or completely unstressed and only tzuoo- has the 2nd Tone. (See also Note 4, p. 109.) 18. Ε (very short and high) 'Say!' 19. Ν eng 'able, can,' as distinguished from huey 'can, know how to.' 20. Complement and Predicate. — In Lesson 4, we had constructions like ting.de-doong 'can understand (from hearing),' in which we called -.de-doong a 'potential complement,' also ting.de-ching.chuu 'can hear clearly,' in which -.de-ching.shuu is a potential complement. Similarly, shiee.de-hao can mean 'can write well,' with -.de-hao as potential complement. But shiee .de (text Lesson 3, between Notes 34 and 35) can also mean ' that which is written, the quality or style of writing, etc. and Τa shiee .de hao can mean ' W h a t he writes is good, the way he writes is good, —-he

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writes well,' where Ta shiee .de is the subject and hao is the predicate. In actual speech, there is no difference between shiee.de-hao 'can write well' and shiee .de hao 'write well, wrote well.' We distinguish the two constructions by varying the spacing and the hyphenation. Which is the meaning in speech will have to come out from the sense or the context. The same ambiguity exists with questions formed by adding .ma or .a to a statement: Ta shiee.de-hao .ma? 'Can he write well?' Ta shiee .de hao .ma? 'Does he write well?' Both sound alike. When, however, the question is put in the disjunctive form of A-not-A, then the two are different. Thus, Ta shiee.de-hao shiee.bu-hao? 'Can he write well?' Ta shiee .de hao .bu.hao? ' Does he write well?' The negatives of these forms are also different. Thus, Ta shiee.bu-hao 'He cannot write well.' Τ a shiee .de buhao 'He does not write well.' 21. The final particle .e indicates obviousness, 'you know, of course!' 22. In real laughter, of course, the h has the same glottal sound as in English and not the tongue-back fricative sound of Mandarin h. 23. Wanq 'toward,' often pronounced wann before consonants in rows d, tz, jr, and ji. 24. Note that sh does not correspond to 'are' of the passive voice in the translation. I t is the ' a r e ' in 'Foreign words are something which is written how?' For the sh can be omitted and the passive-voice ' a r e ' would still be there: Way.gwo-tzyh tzeem shiee? ' Foreign words are written how?' The reason is that Chinese verbs can be taken in either the active sense or the passive sense according to context. (Cf. Note 35, p. 132.) 25. I- followed by AN can be omitted, in which case the AN is unstressed and has the meaning of ' a ' rather than 'one.' This occurs only after verbs. 26. After personal pronouns, .de is omitted before free localizers or words for relationship. 27. Β tzay A (gen) C .de jongjiall 'B is between A and C.' 28. A complement (after a verb) usually expresses a result, while an adverb (after a verb) usually expresses a condition, manner, etc. Thus, tzoou .daw yiitz how.tou 'walk reach chair back, — walk to the back of the chair,' but daw yiitz how.tou tzoou 'reach chair back walk, — go to the chair and walk, — do walking after getting behind the chair.' 29. Between a pronoun and a noun, gen is not omitted. 30. Adjectives. — Chinese adjectives are verbs (pp. 47-48) and can therefore be full predicates, as Jey-been shu hao 'This book is good.' No verb 'to be' is normally used before an adjective, since it is already a verb. Forms like hei .de shu 'books that are black, — black books' are just like lai .de ren 'one who comes.' Similarly, hei .de can also mean 'something

UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, FRONT, BACK, AND MIDDLE

155

that's black,' just as lai .de can mean 'he who (or that which) comes.' Similarly, Jeh.sh hei .de 'This is something black,' more simply, 'This is black,' just like Τa sh Tsorng Meei.gwo lai .de ' H e is one who comes from America,' more simply, 'he comes from America.' The rule about the use of sh with adjectives is then: either use both sh and .de or omit both. 31. A monosyllabic adjective immediately followed by a noun is closely bound to it as a compound. There is often (heibaan), but not always (,hei-shu), a specialized meaning attached to the compound. But forms with .de like hei .de shu 'books that are black' are more likely taken in a general sense. 32. Chyuan.sh 'entirely, completely.' 33. Lii-way 'in-out.' Two bound words having opposite meanings can usually be combined to make one word. 34. Tzar.men ren or tzar.men .de ren does not mean 'we the people,' but 'our persons, our bodies.' 35. On the use of tzay instead of sh see Note 18, p. 130. 36. Although farngtz means 'house, building' and utz means 'room,' the bound forms -farng- and - w - as found in many compounds can both mean either 'house' or 'room.' 37. Kehtarng 'lesson-hall, — classroom.' 38. Never follow the English idiom Ί don't think so' in speaking Chinese, since it means Ί think it is not so.' 39. Sheu 'permit'; ' m a y ' ; 'perhaps.' 40. Dahshengl 'big-sound, — loudly.' 41. .Tzay.nail... .ne 'right there,' form for expressing progressive action, '-ing.' 42. Bye.de 'other (not this one),' not to be used in the sense of ' a n additional one.' 43. Shanq-keh 'take up lesson, — holding a class.' 44. (Exercise 4, Example.) Here is a case of the S - P predicate (p. 35): 'As for you, (your) Chinese is spoken well.' 45. (Exercise 4, (a).) If there is an object before forms like .de hao or -.de-hao, the verb is also repeated. The reason is that there is an aversion to breaking up the unity either of shiee-tzyh or of shiee .de hao (or shiee.dehao, as the case may be).

EXERCISES 1. Comment on the following: (a) Baw.shanq mei.yeou shinwen. (b) Jong.gwo .de baw .shanq mei.yeou way.gwo shinwen. (c) Way.gwo-shu .lii.tou yeou Jong.gwo-tzyh. (d) Heibaan.shanq shiee .de tzyh sh hei .de. (e) Yonq chian&n shiee .de

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tzyh sh hei .de. (f) Shianntzay kehtarng.lii mei ren. (g) Dihsan Keh tzay Dih'i Keh Dih'ell Keh .de jongjiall. (h) Woo shianntzay yonq yowshoou shiee-tzyh .ne. (i) Woo shianntzay shuo .de sh Jong.gwo-huah. (j) Ney-jaan deng tzay woo chyan.tou. (k) Menliengl sheang .de .shyr.howl way.tou mei ren. (1) Jey-suoo farngtz .Iii yeou wuu.shyr-jiijiann utz. 2. Answer the following:

(a) Heibaan.shanq shiee hei-tzyh kann.de-jiann .kann.bu.jiann .a? (b) Weysherm .ne? (c) Nii sh yonq neei-jy shoou na kuaytz .de? (d) Jeyjiann utz yeou jiig men .a? (e) Shyrju-been shu gen shyrjü-been shu sh ju-been shu .a? (f) Yonq feenbii shiee.chu.lai ('write out') .de tzyh sh hei .de hair.sh feen .de ('pink')? (g) Shu bu kai .de.shyr.howl, lii.tou .de tzyh kann.de-jiann .kann.bu.jiann .a? (h) Jong.gwo-tzyh tsorng neei.bial wanq neei.bial shiee? (i) Shiee way.gwo-tzyh .de .shyr.howl .ne? (j) Jong.gworen shuo Liibayryh tzay Liibay'i .de chyan.tou .hair.sh how.tou .a? (k) Liibay'i daw Liibayryh jongjiall .de jiig ryhtz ('dates') jiaw sherm.me? (1) Hei-shu lii.tou weysherm bu wanchyuan sh hei .de? 3.

Example:

Given: Woo buneng shiee-tzyh; Woo mei jyy bii:

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Answer: Woo buneng shiee-tzyh. Nii tzeem (or weysherm) buneng shieetzyh .ne? Woo mei jyy bii .a. .Oh, nii inwey mei jyy bii, swoo.yii buneng shiee-tzyh, .sh .bu.sh? Duey .le.

(a) Wang San bu kann-baw; Wang San buhuey kann-baw. (b) Ta tzoou .daw men.nall; menliengl sheang .le. (c) Woo huey torngshyr ('simultaneously') shiee leangg butorng .de tzyh; woo yeou leang-jy shoou. (d) Tzar.men tzay lii.tou ting.de-jiann ren tzay way.tou raang; way.tou .de .ren raang .de sheang ('loud'), (e) (Woo tzwol ting shuo Lao Wang jiel lai, kee.sh) ta miengl .tsair lai .ne; ta jiel yeou-shyh. (f) Jiel tzay tzwol gen miengl .de jongjiall; jiel tzay tzwol .de how.tou, tzay miengl .de chyan.tou. (g) Bair-jyy .shanq shiee 'bair'-tzyh (the word 'bair') kann.de-jiann; bair-jyy .shanq shiee .de 'bair'-tzyh sh hei .de. (h) Renren dou gen woo shuo Jong.gwo-huah; woo shianntzay huey shuo Jong.gwohuah .le. (i) Woo gen ta nemm dashengl shuo-huah; ta shuo ta ting.bujiann woo shuo sherm.me. (j) Jeyg tzyh woo shiee.bu-chulai; woo bujydaw sh tzeem shiee .de. (k) Lao Wang sh yonq tzuoo.shoou shiee-tzyh .de; ta yonq yow.shoou shiee-tzyh .de shyr.howl shiee.bu-hao. (1) Woo bujydaw nii tzay way.tou nemm.shie shyr.howl .le; woom menliengl bu sheang .le.

UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, FRONT, BACK, AND MIDDLE

4. Example: Given: Nii Jong.gwo-huah shuo .de hao.

157

Answer: (1) Nii Jong.gwo-huah shuo .de hao .bu.hao? (2) Woo Jong.gwo-huah shuo .de buhao. (3) Tzeem .ne? (or Weysherm .ne?) (4) Inwey .a, inwey woo shuo.bu-hao, swoo.yii shuo .de buhao. (5) .Oh, inwey nii shuo.bu-hao, suoo.yii shuo .de buhao .a? (6) .£h, duey .le.

(a) Ta yonq maufeu shiee-tzyh shiee 45 .de hao. (b) Jeyg way.gworen shuo Jong.gwo-huah shuo .de duey. (c) Yonq woo jey-jy gangbii shieetzyh shiee .de hei. (d) Jey-wey shian.sheng shuo-huah shuo .de ching.chuu. (e) Jong.gworen shuo Jong.gwo-huah shuo .de mann, (f) Na feenbn tzay bair-jyy .shanq shiee-tzyh .he.je na chianbii tzay heibaan.shanq shiee-tzyh shiee .de ching.chuu. 5. Example: Given: Nii kann.jian feiji .le.

Answer: (1) Nii kann.jiann feiji .le .mei.yeou? (2) Mei.yeou, woo mei kann.jiann feiji. (3) Nii tzeem mei kann.jiann feiji .ne? (4) Inwey woo kan.bu-jiann feiji, swoo.yii woo mei kann.jiann feiji. (5) (Ad lib.) Feiji yee sheu wuh-dean .le .ba?

(a) Nii tin.jiann woo shuo .de sh sherm .le. (b) Woo ney-jiann shyh gen ta shuo-ching.chuu .le. (c) Wang Ell ting.chu ta sh Lao San .lai .le. (d) Ta.men tzwol kann.chu ('make out') ney-leang-jy sh sheir.de bii .lai .le. (e) Tzwol Lao Jang duey .woo ('to me') tzay diannhuah.lii shuoching.chuu .le. (f) Ta ting.chu nii sh Meei.gworen .lai .le.

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LESSON 6 A SMOKE RING Yesterday I finished up an important item of business, and I was very tired from working, awfully tired. After I came back, I didn't even want to eat supper, and couldn't even finish one bowl of rice. So I sat on a sofa to rest a while and smoke a little and so forth. Just as I had finished smoking a cigarette, I saw, inside a smoke ring, there seemed to be something like a landscape painting. Well, how strange! This smoke ring just wouldn't dissolve. I blew at it, but couldn't blow it away either. After another moment it seemed as if I myself had walked into that smoke ring, too. Taking a look around, I could not see the things in my room, either. The sound of the clock which had been going 'ticktock ticktock' a while ago could no longer be heard either. The chair I was sitting on had also gone to I-don't-know-where. I just felt as if I were over a great sea and were flying there all the time. I looked below, and it seemed as if there were one very beautiful island after another. I said, "Good, now this is fine! I always wanted to fly, but never could, this time I am really flying. I am flying both high and fast, what fun! Ha! It's real fun! But don't fall down, mind you! Otherwise I should either fall on an island and get smashed to death, or fall into the sea and get drowned. "Let me fly down a little and take a look. Let me see, see if I can still fly down." Well, it's true! 1 can still fly down. But once I went flying downwards, I kept straight on flying down, and when 1 wanted to fly up again, I couldn't fly up any more. Meanwhile I dropped lower and lower, down to one thousand feet, nine hundred feet, eight hundred feet, seven hundred, six hundred, five hundred, . . . straight on down to so low that I could see as if there were a great many people walking there. So I shouted to them loudly and said, 'Hey, you, keep to one side, walk on one side! Stand aside! I am falling down, hey! "No sooner said than done!" By that time, I began to see that what I had taken to be people a moment ago were not real people, but a lot of big trees. Bang! with a crash I fell on the top of one of the big trees. I said, "What a mess, what a mess now! It won't matter if it only hurts a little from the fall, but if I got my eyes put out, what would I do then? Wonder if I can still open my eyes now." I opened my eyes and took a look, . . . Why, I had fallen asleep and had had a dream!

A SMOKE

DIHLIOW IG

RING

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KEH

IANCHIUAL

Tzwo.tian 1 woo tzuoh-wan.le2 i-jiann 3 yawjiin .de shyh.chyng, kee.sh4 tzuoh .de heen ley, tzuoh .de ley-jyi.le.5 Hwei.lai .le lian woanfann yee 6 by sheang chy, i-woan 7 fann dou chy.bu-wan. Woo .jiow tzuoh .tzay 8 ig dahyiitz .shanq shie.x,9 chou.x ian 10 .sherm.de.11 Gang chou-wan.le i-gel shiang'ian,12 kann.jiann ig ianchiual.lii hao.shianq 13 yeou g shanshoei-huall14 .shyh.de.18 £e? Jen 16 chyiguay! Jeyg ianchiual tzoong 17 bu sann.kai.18 Woo chuei.x .ta, yee lao chuei.busann. Y o w guoh.le .i.hoel,19 hao.shianq woo tzyhjii ren 20 yee tzoou .daw ianchiual.lii .chiuh 21 .le. Syhmiann ι-kann,22 yee kann.bu-jiann woo u.lii .de dong.shi .le. Gangtsair didadida .de jong tzoou .de sheng.in yee ting.bu-jiann .le. Woo tzuoh .de neyg yiitz yee bujydaw shanq naal .chiuh .le. Jiow jyuej 23 woo tzay ig dah-hae .shanq.tou lao .tzay.nail fei .shyh.de. Kann.x dii.shiah, hao.shianq yeou i-tzuoh .v.χ .de24 heen haokann 25 .de hae dao. W o o shuo, " H a o .Pa, shianntzay hao ,1'a! Woo lao sheang fei, lao fei.buchiilai,26 jey.hwei kee 27 jen fei.chii.lai 28 .le. Fei .de yow gau yow kuay, fei .de jen haowal! 29 .Hah! Jen yeou yih.sy! 30 Kee.sh bye diaw.le.shiah.chiuh, .ah! Buran 31 .a, bu.sh diaw .tzay Aaedao.shanq shuai.syy, jiow.sh 32 huey diaw .de 33 hae-shoei .Iii ian.syy .de. "Deeng 34 .woo fei-shiah.chiuh .i.deal kann.x .ba. Ranq 3 5 .woo kann .a, ranq .woo kann hair fei.de.shiah.chiuh .fei.bu.shiah.chiuh." £r, jen.de! Hair fei.de-shiah chiuh. Kee.sh woo i wann-shiah fei, jiow ijyr 3 6 lao wann-shiah fei, tzay sheang fei.chii.lai yow 3 7 fei.bu-chiilai .le. Nah .shyr.howl woo yueh diaw yueh di,38 di .daw i-chian-chyy, jeou.baechyy, ba.bae-chyy, chi.bae, liow.bae, wuu.bae, . . . ijyr di .daw kann.dejiann 39 dii.shiah hao.shianq yeou sheuduo 40 ren .tzay.nail tzoou-dawl. Woo jiow duey .ta.men dahshengl raangj shuo, " U a i , nii.men kaw-bial tzoou, bial (.shanq) tzoou! 41 Jann .de parngbial .i.deal, woo yaw 4 2 diaw.shiah.lai ,1'a, .hei!" . . . "Shuo shyr chyr, nah shyr kuay." 43 Daw nah .shyr.howl woo .tsair kann.chu.lai gangtsair woo yiiwei 44 sh ren .de, bush jen.de ren, sh sheuduo dah-shuh. Hualhalha! i-sheng, woo.de shentz diaw .de i-ke 45 dah-shuh .de dieengl.shanq. Woo shuo, " T z a u 4 6 .le, j-h-eh47 tzaugau .le! Yaw.sh jyy.sh shuaiterng.le hair fcwyawjiin, kee.sh yaw 48 bae 49 .shuang yean.jing penq-shia.le, nah tzeem bann .ne? Buj(yd)aw 5 0 shianntzay woo.de yean.jing hair jeng.de-kai 51 .jeng.bu.kai .le." Jeng.kai.le yean.jing t'-kann, . . . Sheir j(yd)aw 5 2 gangtsair sh53 shueyjaur.le, tz-h-uoh.le ig menq! 54

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NOTES 1. Tian 'sky'; -tian 'day.' Tzwo.tian = tzwol. Similarly, jin.tian = jiel, ming.tian — miengl. The -.tian forms for the names of days are slightly more formal than the -I forms. 2. Tzuoh-wan 'do to a finish, — finish doing.' 3. Verb for Past Action with a Quantified Object. — When a verb for an action in the past has an object containing a quantity word (including the case of 'one,' as ig, i-baa, etc.), the verb takes .le as a suffix. Thus, Woo tzuoh.le leang-jiann shyh Ί did two things.' However, when the verb is in the negative, with mei 'did not, have not,' no -.le is used. 4. Kee.sh, lit. 'but.' Gen cannot be used here, as it can only join substantives. 5. The complement -jyi.le 'to an extreme' corresponds in style to 'awfully.' 6. Lian woanfann yee 'including evening-meal too, — even my supper.' 7. Woan 'bowl,' an unrelated homonym of woan 'evening'; 'late.' I-jy or ig woan 'a bowl.' In i-woan fann 'a bowl of (cooked) rice,' woan is used as a temporary measure word (4(c), p. 46). 8. The phrase .tzay ig dahyiitz .shanq is a complement to tzuoh. 9. Shie 'to rest,' an unrelated homonym of the indefinite measure word shie 'some, amount.' 10. Chou-ian 'draw-smoke, — to smoke.' 11. .Sherm.de 'and so forth, and things.' Cf. 'what not.' 12. Shiang'ian 'fragrant-smoke, — cigarette,' also called ianjeual 'tobacco-roll.' The AN -gel (< gen 'root' -|—I) is applied to rod-like objects. 13. HaOoshianq 'well-like, — seem, as if.' 14. Shanshoei 'mountain-water, — landscape' (either the scenery itself or a painting of it). Huah 'to draw, to paint,' huall 'picture, painting.' 15. .Shyh.de '(so it) seems.' Either hao0shianq... alone, o r . . . .shyh.de alone, or both together (as used here) can be used for 'as if, it seems as if.' 16. Jen 'real, true.' When used as an intensive adverb, it usually still has an exclamatory force (cf. 'real good!'). It does not therefore correspond to the present status of the word 'very,' which no longer means 'true.' 17. Tzoong 'main'; 'all the time, always.' Lao 'old'; 'all the time, always.' Tzoong bu, or lao bu 'all the time not, — never.' 18. Sann.kai 'scatter-afar, — dissolve, disperse.' 19. Yow guoh.le ihoel, lit. 'again, having passed a moment.'

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20. Woo tzyhjii ren or woo Izyhjii .de ren Ί self('s) person, — my own person, — I myself.' 21. Tzoou .daw ianchiual.lii 'walk to smoke-ring-inside,—walk into the smoke ring.' The additional complement .chiuh expresses direction away from the speaker. (See Note 28.) 22. Syhmiann i-kann 'four sides once look, — take a look around.' 23. Jyuej ' (I) felt that, (I) found that 24. I-AN i-AN .de X 'one X after another.' 25. Heen haokann 'very good-looking, very beautiful.' 26. An unstressed directional complement is usually stressed again, with full tone, when -.de- ' c a n ' or - . b u - 'cannot' is inserted. 27. Kee 'however': 'this time, however, I have really flown up.' 28. Directional Complements. — A number of verbs of motion lai, chiuh, etc., usually in the neutral tone, can be placed after a verb to indicate direction, as na.lai 'bring-come, — bring h i t h e r , — b r i n g here,' na.chiuh 'bring-go, — bring thither, — take away,' chu.lai 'go-out hither, — come out,' jinn.lai 'enter hither, — come in,' jinn.chiuh 'enter hither, — go in,' chii.lai 'rise hither, — rise (in the direction of the speaker).' (There is no *chii.chiuh in Northern Mandarin.) A main verb plus directional complement can be attached, as a compound directional complement, to another main verb, as na.chu.lai 'take out (in the direction of the speaker),' na.chu.chiuh 'take out (away),' fei.chii.lai 'fly-rise-hither, — fly up.' In meaning, the directional complements -.lai, -.chiuh, -.chu.lai, -.chu.chiuh, -.jinn.lai, -.jinn.chiuh, and -.chii.lai are very similar to the German prefixes her-, hin-, heraus, hinaus, herein, hinein, and heraus, respectively. 29. Wal ' t o play,' haowal 'good to play, — to be fun.' 30. Yeou yih.sy 'have meaning, •— interesting, fun.' 31. Buran '(if) not thus, — otherwise.' 32. Bu.sh A jiow.sh Β ' (if) it is not a case of A, then it is a case of B, — either A or B.' (Cf. Note 23, p. 56.) 33. In complement position, .de (probably < daw 'arrive') ' t o ' is often used instead of .tzay, as tzuoh .de juotz.nall 'sit-at the table,' diaw de shoei.lii 'fall into the water,' diaw .de shuh.shanq 'fall on(to) the tree.' 34. Deeng 'wait.' Deeng .woo... 'wait for me t o . . . , wait until I ' 35. Ranq 'yield'; 'let.' 36. Ijyr 'one straight, — straight on, keep . . . -ing.' 37. In general tzay 'again' is used for considered events and yow 'again' for actual events. In most (but not all) cases, they correspond to future and past events, respectively. 38. Yueh . . . yueh 'the more . . . the more.' Woo yueh diaw yueh di ' t h e more I fell, the lower I (got), — I fell lower and lower.'

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39. Di .daw kann.de-jiann 'low to the state of being able to see, — so low that I could see that. . . . " 40. Duo 'much'; 'many.' Sheuduo 'a great lot.' 41. Kaw-bial tzoou 'lean-side walk, — walk leaning to one side.' Bial tzoou is the expression a rickshaman often uses to warn off pedestrians. 42. Yaw ... .le 'will (soon).' 43. Shuo shyr chyr, nah shyr kuay 'saying time slow, that (actual) time fast' is a common cliche in the style of novels. In ordinary speech it would be Shuo .de shyr.howl mann, lai .de shyr.howl kuay. 44. Yiiwei 'take-to-be, — take it (wrongly) that.' 45. Ke is the AN for all plants. 46. Tzau 'dregs, mess' (lit. and fig.). Tzaugau 'messy-cake' (fig. only). 47. The first h in j-h-eh is simply an indication for a laughed-out pronunciation, a sort of aspirated cheh. 48. Yaw (abbreviated from yaw.sh) 'if.' 49. Pretransitives. — When a verb has both a direct object and a complement, the usually preferred practice in Chinese is to break up the whole thing into two verb-object constructions. The first part consists of the pretransitive bae (alternating with bay and the more formal baa) 'take hold of' and the object, while the second consists of the specific verb plus the complement. Thus, instead of penq-shia.le yean.jing 'knock blind the eyes, — put out the eyes,' a more common way of saying this is bae yean.jing peng-shia.le 'take eyes, knock (them) blind, — have the eyes put out.' Similarly, bae jey-woan fann chy-wan.le ' take this bowl of rice, eat it up, — eat up this bowl of rice.' Cf. Exercise 3. 50. Bujydaw 'don't know' is often underarticulated into buj'aw or further into b'r'aw, especially, when followed by an A-not-A construction, in the sense of Ί wonder whether.' 51. Jeng.kai 'open up, open' limited to the eyes only. 52. Sheir jy.daw 'who knows (but that) . . . ,' expression of surprise. 53. Sh 'it is a case of.' 54. Tzuoh-menq 'do-dream, — to have a dream.' The spelling tz-h-uoh is to suggest a chuckled pronunciation (cf. Note 47). EXERCISES 1. Answer the following: (a) Nii chy-wan.le woanfann chou .deal sherm ian .a? (b) Nii jin.tian chy.le jw-woan fann? (c) Nii huey tzay ig ianchiual .Iii tzay chuei .ig ianchiual .bu.huey? (d) Shuey-jaur.le .de .shyr.howl kann.de-jiann dong.shi .ma? (e) Shuey-jaur.le .de .shyr.howl shuo-huah .bu .shuo? (f) Hae .de jongjiall yaw.sh yeou dih, ney-kuay dih jiaw sherm.me?

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(g) Feiji fei .de kuay .hair.sh chwan tzoou .de kuay? (h) 'Shianntzay' jey-leangg tzyh sh sherm yih.sy? (i) Yaw.sh ren tsorng shan.shanq shuai.shiah.lai, ta jiow tzeemyanql .a? (j) Nii yaw.sh ley .le, nah jiow tzuoh .deal sherm hao .ne? (k) Yaw.sh feiji diaw .de shuh.shanq, sh shermyanql .de sheng.in? (1) Yaw.sh nii yaw .ta bu nemm dahshengl shuo-huah, nii jiow tzeem duey .ta shuo .ne? 2.

Examples: Given: I. Gangtsair woo ting.bu-jiann.

II. Woo tzwo.tian shuo-huah shuo .de mann.

Answer: (1) Gangtsair woo ting.bu-jiann. (2) Nii shianntzay ting.de-jiann .ting.bu.jiann .ne? (3) Shianntzay .a, shianntzay woo ting.dejiann .le. (4) Jey.hoel ('this moment') .ne? (5) Er, jenchyiguay, jey.hoelyowting.bujiann .le! (1) Woo tzwo.tian shuo-huah shuo .de mann. (2) Nii jin.tian shuo-huah shuo .de mann .bu.mann .ne? (3) Jin.tian .a, jin.tian woo shuo .de kuay .le. (4) Shianntzay .ne? (5) £r, jen chyiguay, shianntzay woo shuo .de yow mann .le!

Apply form I or II, whichever is more suitable to the sense. (a) Woo gangtsair lao fei.bu-chiilai. (b) Woo gangtsair ting.bu-chu nii shuo sherm .lai. (c) Woo tzwol Jong.gwo-huah shuo .de buhao. (d) Gangtsair hao.shianq ting.de-jiann neyg jong tzoou .de sheng.in. (e) Tzwol woo neyg ianchiual lao chuei.bu-sann. (f) Nah .shyr.howl woo ί-tzuoh-chwan jiow shuey.bu-jaur. (g) Woo jiel shanq.wuu ting.bu-jiann sheng.in. (h) Nii gangtsair shuo-huah shuo .de nemm kuay. (i) Tzwol jey-jiah feiji fei .de mann, (j) Woo gangtsair yiiwei (change yiiwei into kann 'see t h a t ' and jyuej 'felt t h a t ' in the successive answers) jey.shie shiang'ian tzar.men chou.bu-wan. (k) Woo gangtsair yiiwei neyg ren shuai .de hae.lii ian.bu-syy .de. (1) Tzwo.tian shanq.wuu ta shuo-huah shuo .de ching-.chuu. 3.

Example: Given: Jeh.sh i-shann men; chiing kuay.deal kai.kai .ta!

Answer: Chiing kuay.deal bae jey-shann men kai.kai!

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(a) Nah.sh jin.tian .de baw. Kuay kann-wan.le ('finish reading') .ta! (b) Jeh.sh i-utz .de ian; woo yaw chuei-sann.le .ta. (c) Jeh.sh nii.de fann; nii hair mei chy-wan .ta .ne. (d) Jeh.sh nii tzyhjii .de shyh.chyng. Nii jin.tian neng bann-wan.Ie .ta .ma? (e) Nah.sh .jiann yawjiin .de shyh; nii kuay.deal tzuoh-wan.le .ta! (f) Nah.sh ta.de yean.jing; ta neng.bu.neng jeng.kai .ta? (g) Nah.sh nii tzwol tzuoh .de menq; woo chiing .nii tzay shuo .i.biann. (h) Jeh.sh nii gangtsair sheang .de yih.sy; shainntzay woo tsair doong-ching.chuu .le. (i) Jeh.sh 'gau'-tzyh; chiing nii shuoching.chuu.le .ta. (j) Nah.sh g Ing'wen-tzyh; nii mei.yeou shuo-duey .ta. (k) Jeh.sh g Jong.gwo-tzyh; nii weysherm bu shiee-hao.le .ta? (1) Nah.sh san-shuang kuaytz; chiing nii shianntzay bau-hao.le ('wrap well') .ta!

LESSON 7 MR. CAN'T STOP TALKING A: I have a friend whose name is Talking, his full name is Can't Stop Talking. B: (Chuckles.) 'Can't Stop Talking'! A: This gentleman is most fond of talking,. . . B: Most fond of talking! A: So people all call him the Talking Machine,. . . B: Phonograph, isn't it? A: Sometimes they also call him the Broadcasting Station. B: "Central Broadcasting Station, X G Ο A!" A: Hey, quiet there! Don't keep interrupting me! Listen, listen to what I say. B: Okay. A: Well, about this man, when he goes to sleep at night, he talks in his sleep. In the morning, as soon as he wakes up, he starts to talk to himself. After he gets up and sees people — well, I don't have to tell you (what happens) then! No matter what you talk about with him, no matter what you ask him, he always has something to say to you. When he finishes one sentence, he starts another, he finishes another, and then starts another, keeping on talking like that. He says, for example, what is big and what is small, which are bad and which are good. If that is more than this, then this is less than that. If I don't get up as late as you do, then you don't get up as early as I. He says that steamships go faster than people, that automobiles, more-

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4. Translate into Chinese: (a) When I ate my supper, I ate three bowls of rice, (b) How strange! What I thought were pencils were not real pencils, but pairs and pairs of very beautiful chopsticks, (c) Did you come by plane? (d) Too bad! My book has dropped into the water. What shall I do? (e) Let me see if this paper has the item of news I have just heard, (f) The faster he talks the less I understand him (yueh bu doong). (g) There were many big trees on the island, (h) All around me not a man could be seen (;yee kann.bu-jianri). (i) After another moment, he could indeed still open his eyes, (j) In less time than it takes to say it, a man fell overboard ('from on the ship') into the sea. (k) Shucks! I can't even write (out) the character ' i ' any more. (1) My goodness! What are those things which are flying down from (on) the airplane?

DIHCHI TARN

1

BUHTING

KEH .SHIAN

.SHENG

A: Woo yeou g perng.yeou shinq Tarn, 2 ming.tzyh jiaw Buhtyng. B: .He.he, 'Tarn.bu-tyng'! A: Jey.wey shian.sheng tzuey ay shuo-huah, . . . B: Diing shii.huan 3 shuo-huah! A: Suoo.yii ren.jia 4 dou goan 5 .ta jiaw huahshyatz, . . . B: Lioushengji,6 .sh .bu.sh'a? A: Yee yeou shyr.howl goan .ta jiaw Goangboh Dianntair. 7 B: 'Jongiang Goangboh Dianntair, X G Ο A!' A: .Eh, bye naw! 8 Nii bye jinq 9 gen .woo daa-chah 10 .ia! Ting .a, ting .woo shuo! B: .Oh, .hao. A: .Ne.me — jey.ge ren .a, ta woan.shanq 11 shuey-jiaw 12 .de .shyr.howl jiow shuo menqhuah. Tzao.chin 13 i-shiing jiow 14 chii-tourl gen tzyhjii shuo-huah. Chii.lai.le yiihow,15 i-kann.jiann ren, nah dangran 16 genq buyonq 17 shuo .le. Sweibiann 18 nii gen .ta shuo sherm shyh, bu goan nii wenn .ta sherm huah,19 ta tzoong yeou huah gen .nii shuo .de. Shuo-wan.le i-juh, yow.sh i-jiuh, shuo-wan.le i-juh, yow.sh z-juh, lao nemm shuo. Bii.fang shuo sherm dah,20 sherm sheau, neeig huay, neeig hao. Yaw.sh neyg bii 21 jeyg duo, jeyg jiow 22 bii neyg shao. Jearu woo chii.lai .de mei nii nemm chyr, nii chii.lai .de jiow mei woo nemm tzao. Ta shuo luenchwan bii ren tzoou .de kuay, chihche tzoou .de yow bii

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over, go faster than steamships, that trains are still faster than automobiles, that therefore trains are much faster than steamships. Furthermore, there are airplanes, which go faster than everything else, nothing else is as fast as an airplane, thus they are the fastest things in the world, so he says. He also likes to discuss people. If he isn't talking about Jang San's good points, he is talking about Lii Syh's shortcomings. He says so-and-so and so-and-so are alike, so-and-so is a little better than so-and-so, so-and-so is worse than so-and-so, that so-and-so is not much good, so-and-so is actually pretty bad, so-and-so is bad no end, so-and-so really extremely bad. He says that there is no fear of there being too many good men; as for bad men, the fewer the better. There had better not be too many bad men; as for good men, however, the more the better. He says he hopes that the people of the world will get better day by day, so that good people will become more numerous every day and bad people will be day by day fewer. B: Do you mean to say that this friend of yours always keeps talking from morning to night? A: Although not quite so bad as that, it's almost like that. He starts from six o'clock in the morning, and once he has begun, he talks until twelve o'clock noon and never remembers to eat until he can no longer stand the hunger, or to drink until he can no longer stand the thirst. But even when he eats, he does not eat properly either. When he starts eating, he eats either very, very fast, or very, very slowly. There is absolutely no certainty about the speed with which he eats. Sometimes, while he is talking, he will use his chopsticks to write on the table and then forgets to eat with them. Sometimes, he talks and eats at the same time, and the faster he talks, the more he eats, and the longer he talks, the less he can eat enough. B: Then, is there no way to make him talk less? A: There is simply nothing you can do about it. The more you interrupt him, the more he can't stop — unless you actually cover up his mouth. If you wait for him to talk until he stops talking himself, well, unless the sun rises in the western sky, there will never be a day when he finishes talking. B: Have you finished talking? A: Huh? . . . Oh, me? I, I, I've finished — oh, I have finished! NOTES 1. Tarn 'to talk, to chat'; 'to discuss.' Butyng 'Footstep-Pavilion,' a plausible ming.tzyh, homonymous with bu tyng 'not stop.' The translation 'Can't stop talking' comes out of the potential construction. 2. Object-Subject Constructions. — An object, especially after yeou,

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luenchwan kuay, huooche bii chihche genq kuay, swoo.yii huooche bii luenchwan jiow kuay .de duo. Yow yeou feiji tzoou .de bii sherm dou 23 kuay, sherm dou mei.yeou feiji nemm kuay, nah .jiow.sh shyh.jieh.shanq 24 tzoou .de tzuey kuay .de dong.shi .le, .ta .shuo. Ta yow shii.huan yih.luenn ren. Bu.sh25 shuo Jang San charng, 2 ' jiow.sh shuo Lii Syh doan. Shuo sheir gen sheir t'yanq, sheir bii sheir hao.i.deal,27 sheir bii sheir huay.i.deal, shuo moouren 28fewdahhao, moouren jeanjyr heen huay, moouren jen.sh huay .de buderleau,29 moowmoou-ren jen huay-jyi.le. Shuo hao-ren frwpah tay duo,30 huay-ren jiow yuh shao yuh 31 hao. Huay-ren imyaw tay duo; hao-ren .kee.sh yuh duo yuh hao. Ta shuo ta shiwanq shyh.jieh.shanq .de ren i-tian bii i-tian hao, .ne.me hao-ren jiow i-tian bii i-tian duo, huay-ren jiow i-tian bii i-tian shao ,le. B: Nii jey-wey perng.yeou nandaw 32 i-tian-daw-woan 33 lao .tzay.nall shuo-huah .ma? A: Sweiran imjyh.yu 34 wanchyuan tzemmyanql, dann.sh 35 yee chah.buduo 36 tzemmyanql .le. Ta tsorng tzao.chin liow-dean jong chiitourl, i-shuo jiow shuo .daw shaang.huo 37 shyr'ell-dean, bu deeng.daw duhtz eh .de burderleau, tzoong bu jihj chy dong.shi, bu deeng.daw tzoei.Iii kee .de mei fartz,38 tzoong bu jih.de he-shoei. Bwguoh 39 ta lian fann yee bu haohaul.de 40 chy .b. Ta chy.chii fann .lai 41 .de .shyr.howl, ftwsh chy .de tiing 42 kuay vx .de, jiow.sh tiing mann vx .de .nemm chy. Ta chy dong.shi .de kuay-mann 43 wanchyuan mei.yeou idinq .de. Yeou.shyr.howl shuoj huah jiow yonq kuaytz tzay juol.shanq shiee-tzyh, jiow wanq.le 44 yonq .ta chy-fann .le. Yeou shyr.howl .ne, ta itourl 45 shuoj itourl chy, shuo .de yueh kuay jiow chy .de yueh duo, yueh shuo.bu-wan jiow yueh chy.bu-gow .le. B: .Ne.me mei fartz jiaw .ta shao shuo .deal .ma? A: Jeanjyr mei bann.faa. Nii yueh daa .ta.de chah,46 ta jiow yueh shuo.bu-tyng — chwufei nii jen wuu.juh .ta.de tzoei. Nii yaw.sh 47 deeng .ta tzyhjii shuo .daw bu shuo .ia, nah chwufei shi-tian chu.le tay.yang,48 yee imhuey 49 yeou g shuo-wan.le .de ryhtz .de. Β: Nii shuo-wan.le .ba? A: Ar? . . . .Oh, woo .ia, .woo, .woo, woo shuo-wan.le Ah, woo shuo-wan.le!

often serves also as subject to a following predicate. Woo yeou g perng.yeou shinq Tarn Ί have a friend (and this friend) has the surname of Tarn.' (See also p. 36.) 3. Tzuey ay 'most love,' diing shii.huan 'most like.' Tzuey and the slightly more colloquial diing (lit. 'top') are adverbs for the superlative degree, often used only as intensives.

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4. Ren.jia 'people-family, — people, others (as against he himself).' Distinguish from renjial 'a family, a household,' with AN -jia. 5. Goan is the specific pretransitive (Note 49, p. 162) when the main verb is jiaw 'call.' It is also possible to omit it: Ren.jia jiaw .ta huashyatz. In other dialects, jiaw is said twice, once as pretransitive and again as main verb: Ren.jia jiaw .ta jiaw huashyatz. Huashyatz 'speech-box, — chatterbox,' old term for 'phonograph.' 6. Lioushengji 'retain-sound-machine, — phonograph,' AN -jiah. 7. Goangboh Dianntair 'broad-cast electric-terrace,—broadcasting station.' 8. Bye (< buyaw) ' d o n ' t . . .!' Ν aw 'to make noise, to make a disturbance.' 9. Jinq 'purely, all the time, keep . . . -ing.' 10. Daa-chah 'make-digression, —• make interruptions.' Gen woo daachah 'to interrupt me.' 11. Woan.shanq is either 'evening' or 'night.' Yeh.lii is '(late) night' only. 12. Shuey-jiaw 'sleep nap, — to sleep,' -jiaw being AN for verbs. 13. The form tzao.chin is probably a blend of tzao.chern 'early-morning' and *tzao-ching 'early-clear.' The form tzao.chern occurs in Mandarin and other dialects, while *tzao-ching does not actually occur. Since there is no character for -.chin in tzao.chin, that for chern is used in the Character Text. Observe that tzao.chin means just 'morning,' but dah-tzao.chin or dahching tzao.chin is used for 'early morning.' 14. I . . . jiow 'once . . . then, — as soon as.' 15. Yiihow 'thence-afterwards, — afterwards, after.' 16. Dangran 'right-ly, — of course.' 17. Buyonq 'not-use, there is no use, — need not.' 18. Sweibiann 'follow-convenience, as you please, — no m a t t e r . . . , ' bugoan 'not care-about, — no matter. . . .' 19. Wenn i-jiuh huah 'ask a sentence of speech, — ask a question.' 20. This and following sentences are illustrations of adjectives as predicates. Only in the English translation is it necessary to add a verb ' to be' before the adjective. In Chinese, sh occurs before an adjective only under one of the following special circumstances: (1) Before .de, as jeh.sh hei .de 'This is (something) black.' (2) For contrasting different qualities, as Ta sh gau, bu.sh dah, 'He is tall, not big.' (3) In emphatic assertion, as Ta sh dah 'He is big.' (4) In the concessive V-.sh-V form (Note 12, p. 184). (See also p. 52.)

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21. In explicit comparisons, superior, equal, and inferior degrees are expressed as follows: Superior: A bii A hao. Equal: A yeou Β (nemm) hao. Inferior: A mei.yeou Β (nemm) hao.

Ά is better than B.' Ά has Β (that) good, — A is as good as B.' ' A has not Β (that) good, — A is not so good as B.'

Equality can also be expressed by iyanq 'equally,' as: A gen Β iyanq hao.

Ά with Β equally good, A is as good as B.'

For implicit comparison, -.ideal or -.deal' (by) a little, more, - e r ' is used, as: Jeyg hao (.i).deal. 'This is better. 22. Note the position of jiow 'then,' which never precedes the subject. 23. Sherm dou 'anything'; sherm dou bu, sherm dou mei.yeou 'anything not, — nothing.' 24. Note that instead of 'in the world,' shyh.jieh.shanq means literally 'on the world.' 25. This sh has nothing to do with the ' is' in the translation. I t is the unexpressed 'is' in 'if it is not a case of talking about Jang. . . .' 26. Shuo Jang San charng, Lii Syh doan is the usual idiom for ' to gossip.' Actually, charng.chuh 'long-points' is the term for 'good points' and doan.chuh 'short-points' for 'shortcomings.' 27. While in comparisons in English ' - e r ' or 'more' is compulsory, -.i.deal is optional in comparisons. (Cf. Note 21.) 28. Moouren ' a certain person.' 29. Buderleau lit., 'no-getting-finish' and -jyi.le ' t o an extreme' are here translated more nearly literally. In actual use, they correspond in style and force to 'awfully.' 30. Bupah 'don't fear' is an interpolated phrase: 'Good men, let's not be afraid, could be too many.' Note the preference for putting duo ' many' in the predicate. 'There are too many people here' is Jell .de ren tay duo, since the point is not that there are people here, but that the people here are too numerous. 31. Yuh 'the more' is a somewhat more literary word than yueh. 32. Nandaw 'hard-to-say, — do you mean to say?' 33. I-tian-daw-woan 'one day-to-night, — from morning to night.' 34. Sweiran bujyh.yu 'although not-reach-to.' As bujyh.yu is always used in a bad sense, it may be translated as 'as bad as.'

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35. Dann.sh 'but,' slightly more formal than kee.sh. 36. Chah.bitduo 'cannot differ much, — almost.' 37. Distinguish between shaang.huo (< shaang-ivuu) 'toward noon, — around noon time' and shanq.wuu 'forenoon, A.M.' 38. Meifartz 'have no way (out), — not to know what to do.' 39. Buguoh 'not past, not over, only, but.' 40. An adjective or adverb is often repeated, with change into 1st Tone (if not already in the 1st) and addition of -I, sometimes with addition of -.de, to give a more lively meaning. Hao 'good': haohaul.de 'goodly, well and properly.' Kuay ' f a s t ' : Kuaykual.de 'good and fast.' 41. Note the split complement by the object fann. 42. Tiing (< diing, 'most,' with phonetic modification) 'pretty, rather.' 43. Kuay-mann 'fast-slow, •— speed.' 44. Wanq 'forget' is used only intransitively. Wanq.le or wanq.jih can be used either transitively or intransitively. 45. Itourl. . . itourl 'one end . . . one end, — (doing one thing) while (doing another).' 46. Daa-chah is an intransitive verb, while 'interrupt' is a transitive verb. To translate the English object after 'interrupt,' one either puts another verbal expression before daa-chah or a possessive form before the internal object chah. Thus, 'interrupt him' may be translated as either gen da daa-chah (Note 10) or daa .ta.de chah ' make his interruption.' 47. Yaw.sh ' if' and other ' if' words can either precede or follow the subject. 48. Shi-tian chu.le tay.yanq 'the western sky has produced a s u n / common figure for an impossibility. 49. A chwufei clause followed by a clause in the negative is 'unless,' but when followed by a clause in the positive containing tsair . . . .ne it is to be translated as 'only if.' Thus, Chwufei tial hao woo bu chu-men 'Unless it is fine, I won't go out,' but Chwufei tial hao woo tsair chu-men .ne 'Only if it is fine will I go out.' EXERCISES 1. Answer the following: (a) Ta.men goan Tarn Buhting .Shian.sheng hair jiaw .shie sherm ming.tzyh .a? (b) Weysherm ta.men goan .ta jiaw ney.shie ming.tzyh .ne? (c) Ren shuo menqhuah .de .shyr.howl sh .bu.sh tdinq .tzay.nall tzuoh-menq? (d) Feiji tzoou .de bii huooche jyy kuay ideal .ma? (e) 'Huay'.tzyh sh sherm yih.sy .a? (f) ' T a y duo' leangg tzyh sh sherm yih.sy .ne? (g) Jey-keh .Iii shuo .de ney-wey shian.sheng ta chy-fann chy .de kuay .bu.kuay? (h) Ta yeou shyr.howl na sherm shiee-tzyh? (i) Nii yaw.sh tzay .ta shuo-huah .de .shyr.howl gen .ta daa-chah, ta jiow tzeem .ne? (j) Tarn Buhtyng .Shian.sheng tarn .daw sherm ryhtz tsair huey

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tyng .ne? (k) Tay.yang jii.shyr tsair huey tsorng shi.bial chu.lai? (1) Nii shuo-huah shuo .de duo .hair.sh Tarn .Shian.sheng shuo .de duo? 2. Example: Given: Woo bii ta dah.

Answer: Yaw.sh nii bii ta dah, ta jiow mei.yeou nii nemm dah.

(a) I-ke shuh bii ig ren gau. (b) Yonq maubii shiee .de tzyh bii yonq chiannfrn shiee .de tzyh haokann. (c) Huooche bii luenchwan tzoou .de kuay. (d) Bawjyy bii bau dong.shi .de jyy bair. (e) Ta chy-fann bii woo chy .de duo. (f) Ta Jongwen bii Ing'wen shiee .de ching.ehuu. (g) Tarn Buhtyng shuo-huah .de shyr.howl bii chy dong.shi .de shyr.howl duo. (h) Woo.men bii woo.men .de shian.sheng lai .de tzao. (i) Nii shuo-huah .de sheng.in bii woo raang .de sheng.in hair genq gau. (j) Woo shanq.wuu bii shiah.wuu eh. (k) Huooche bii luenchwan charng, yee bii .ta kuay. (1) Denqtz bii juotz di, yee bii .ta sheau. 3. Translate into Chinese: (a) They called him Mr. Non-stop, as well as The Broadcasting Station, (b) If he is not talking about one (this) thing, he is talking about another (that), (c) No matter at what time, he never remembers to eat his meals, (d) The more I thought of flying, the less I could fly. (e) He said he had seen such and such (sherm sherm) people and done such and such things, (f) The more people I see the more I like to see people. (See Note 30.) (g) After falling asleep, he still kept talking, (h) Do you mean to say that he never smokes? (i) Although I am not entirely ignorant of Chinese, I am almost like that, (j) Don't interrupt me! I am busy, (k) There is nothing certain about the speed with which people do things. (1) We simply didn't know what to do. 4. Example: Given: Ta kann.jiann.Ie ren tsair shuohuah .ne.

Answer: Ta hair mei kann.jiann ren .de .shyr.howl lao bu shuo-huah, dann.sh (or kee.sh) i-kann.jiann.le ren jiow shuo.chii huah .lai .le (or jiow chii-tourl shuo-huah .le.).

(a) Ta tzao.chin chii.lai.le tsair chy dong.shi .ne. (b) Tarn .Shian.sheng shuey-jaur.le tsair shuo menqhuah .ne. (c) Ig ren tzuoh-shyh tzuoh .de duo tsair jyuej ley .ne. (d) Yeou ren tzay men way.tou .de .shyr.howl menliengl tsair sheang .ne. (e) Jey.wey shian.sheng lao.sh ting.jiann.le huooche .de sheng.in .le tsair jih.de ta sh yaw tzuoh huooche .de .ne. (f) Ta daw eh .de buderleau .le tsair chiuh chy-fann .ne. (g) Nii wuu.juh

LESSON 8

172

.ta.de tzoei ta tsair bu gen .nii daa-chah .ne. (h) Woo chy-wan.le fann tsair chou-ian .ne. (i) Shiing.le tsair neng ting.jiann jong tzoou .de sheng.in .ne. (j) Woo pah woo daw.le Jong.gwo tsair huey na kuaytz chy dong.shi .ne. (k) Jell deeng.daw yeh.lii shyr'ell-dean jong yiihow tsair ting.de-jiann tsorng Jong.gwo goangboh.chu.lai .de shinwen .ne. (1) Shyh.jieh.shanq .de shyh.chyng deeng.daw tzuoh.le yiihow tsair neng jy.daw huey tzuoh .bu.huey .ne. 5.

Example:

Given: Ing'wen, lai, come.

Answer: A. Ing'wen goan ' lai' jiaw sherm.me? B. Ing'wen goan 'lai' jiaw 'come,' 'come' jiow.sh 'lai' .de yih.sy.

LESSON 8 ANTONYMS Of the affairs of the world, of the things under heaven, there is not one that does not have two sides, a right and a reverse. No matter what the affair is, no matter what the thing is, if it has a right side, it always has a reverse side, if it has a reverse side, then it always has a right side. This is a fixed principle, which everyone knows and which everyone is clear about. For example, the opposite of come is go, the opposite of buy is sell, the opposite of true is false, the opposite of good is bad. Moreover, 'not new' is 'old,' 'not long' is short,' 'not cold' is called 'hot,' 'not hard' is called 'soft.' If a thing is not easy to do, then we say that this thing is difficult, so to speak. If it is easily done, then we say this thing is easy. Therefore difficult and easy can also be regarded as antonyms. When a person is asleep, he is not being awake; when he is awake, he is not asleep. Thus, asleep and awake, again, are right and reverse words. We now understand that all things in the world have a right and a reverse. In the use of words, there is also a right and a reverse. But sometimes, in speaking of an opposite thing, you do not need to use an opposite word; it will be all right just to add a 'not.' For example, the opposite of like is hate; if you put it more lightly, you just say 'don't like.' The opposite of good is bad, but ordinarily, you also say 'not good.' To be able to hear and get the idea is called 'to understand,' to be unable to hear and get the idea is called 'not to understand.' To be good fun is called 'interesting,' not to be good fun is called 'uninteresting.' If you ask me, 'May I smoke here?' and if I let you smoke, then I say,

ANTONYMS

173

(a) Shianntzay ren, huahshyatz, lioushengji. (b) Ta.men dou, neyg lao shii.huan shuo-huah .de ren, Tarn Buhtyng. (c) Jong.gwo-huah, shuey-jiaw .de .shyr.howl shuo-huah, shuo menqhuah. (d) Jongwen, no matter how, sweibiann tzeem.me .huoh.jee bugoan tzeemyanql. (e) Jong.gwo-huah, the people in the world, shyh.jieh.shanq .de ren. (f) Jey-wey shian.sheng, yueh kuay yueh hao, yuh kuay yuh hao. (g) Ing'wen, frwjyh.yu nemmyanql, not as bad as that, (h) Jell .de huah, shanq.wuu gen shiah.wuu (.de) Jongjiall .de shyr.howl, shaang.huo. (i) Jong.gwohuah, sheang he-shoei, kee. (j) Jong.gwo-huah, to find t h a t . . . .he.je to notice t h a t . . . , jyuej . . . (k) Jell .de ren, 5whuey yeou .de shyh.chyng, shi-tian chu.le tay.yang. (1) Jong.gwo-huah, ren.jia shuo-huah .de .shyr.howl nii gen .ta naw, daa-chah.

DIHBA KEH JENQFAAN-TZYH 1 Tianshiah 2 .de shyh.chyng, tian-dii.shiah .de dong.shi, raei.yeou3 4 i-yanql mei.yeou jenq-/aan leang-miall .de. Wuluenn sherm shyh.chyng, bugoan sherm dong.shi, yeou jenqmiall tzoong yeou faanmiall, yeou faanmiall jiow tzoong yeou jenqmiall. Jeh.sh idinq .de daw.Iii,5 renren dou jy.daw, renren dou ming.bair 6 .de.7 Bii.fang shuo, lai .de faanmiall sh chiuh, mae .de faanmiall sh may, jen .de faanmiall sh jea, hao .de faanmiall sh huay. Hair yeou bu shin jiow.sh jiow, 8 bu charng jiow.sh doan, bu leeng 9 jiow jiaw reh, bu yinq jiow jiaw roan. Yaw.sh i-jiann shyh.chyng bu hao tzuoh, jiow shuo jey-jiann shyh.chyng heen 10 nan, .tzemm.yanql .shuo. Yaw.sh hao tzuoh 11 .de .ne, jiow shuo jeh shyh-chyng heen rong.yih, .tzemm.yanql .shuo. Swoo.yii nan-yih 12 yee fcee.yii suann 13 sh jenqfaan-tzyh .le. Ren shuey-jaur.le .de .shyr.howl bu.sh shiingj; shiing .de .shyr.howl bu.sh shuey-jaur.le. .Ne.me shiing gen shuey-jaur yow.sh i-jenq i-faan 14 .le. Tzar.men shianntzay yii.jing 16 ming.bair shyh.jieh.shanq .de dong.shi shyh.chyng 16 dou yeou-jeng ?/eoii-faan. Tzay shuo yonq-tzyh, yee.sh yeou-jenq yeou-i&axv .de. Dann.sh yeou shyr.howl shuo faanmiall .de shyh, bu idinq 17 deei 18 yonq faanmiall .de tzyh, jia ig '&w'-tzell 19 jiow shyng .le. Bii'ang 2 0 shuo, shii.huan .de faanmiall sh henn; shuo-ching.deal 21 jiow shuo bu shii.huan. Hao .de faanmiall sh huay, kee.sh pyngcharng 2 2 yee shuo buhao. Ting.de-chu yih.sy .lai jiaw ting.de-doong, ting.bu-chu yih.sy .lai jiaw ting.bu-doong. Haowal jiow jiaw yeou yih.sy, buhaowal jiow jiaw mei yih.sy. Jearu nii wenn .woo, 'Jell fcee.yii .bu.kee.yii chou-ian?' yaw.sh woo sheu

174

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'You may smoke here'; if, however, I don't let you smoke, then I say, 'You may not smoke,' or 'Don't smoke!' If you keep asking me again, ' Will it be all right if I smoke?' then I must say, ' No, no! That won't do!' To put it more strongly, I will say, ' I forbid you to smoke, I won't allow you to smoke! I told you you were not allowed to smoke!' If I have a rather difficult thing I want to ask you to do for me, I will ask you,' Are you willing to do this thing for me?' If you say,' I think this thing is very hard,' then I know that you are not willing to do it. If there is a very dangerous place, and I ask you,' Do you dare to go to that place?' and if you say, Ί am afraid it's too dangerous there!' then I know that you don't dare to go. There are many more two-sided things which, when you look at them, seem to be opposites, but are really correlatives, not really opposites. For example, the counterpart of man is woman, the counterpart of children is grownups. The counterpart of father is mother, the counterpart of son is daughter, the counterpart of parents, again, is offspring. The counterpart of elder brother is younger brother, the counterpart of elder sister is younger sister, therefore elder and younger brothers, again, are the counterparts of elder and younger sisters. The counterpart of drink is eat, the counterpart of water is fire, the counterpart of here is there, the counterpart of you is I. With your mouth you talk, with your ears you listen, with your hand you write, and for reading you have to use your eyes; so that talk, listen, write, and read, again, form two pairs of correlative terms. If you can neither speak, nor understand, nor write, nor read Chinese now, that means that you have not yet learned your Chinese. On the other hand, when some day you have mastered your Chinese, then you can both speak it accurately and understand it clearly, both write it correctly and read it intelligently. NOTES 1. Jenq 'right, upright'; faan 'reverse, obverse.' Jenqfaan-tzyh '(a pair of) antonyms.' 2. Tianshiah 'under heaven, — the world' is a slightly more oldfashioned word than shyh.jieh; tian-dii.shiah 'under heaven.' 3. Mei.yeou i-yanql mei.yeou 'there is none that does not have . . .' is an object-subject construction (p. 36). Iyanq 'alike, same'; i-yanq or i-yanql 'one kind, one thing, one point.' 4. Wuluenn 'no discussing, — no matter. . .' is more literary than sweibiann or bugoan. 5. Daw 'way, road' is the 'tao' of Taoism; Iii 'reason' is the 'li' of the Sung dynasty philosophers. Daw.lii 'principle, reason.'

ANTONYMS

175

.nii chou-ian, woo jiow shuo, 'Jell fcee.yii chou-ian'; yaw.sh woo bu ranq .nii chou .ne, woo jiow shuo, 'Bu/cee.yii chou-ian!' .he.sh shuo, 'Bye chouian!' Nii yaw.sh tzay lao wenn .woo, 'Chou-ian shyng .bu.shyng?' nah woo jiow deei shuo,'Bushyng,bushyng! Tzemmyanql 13 bushyng!' Tzay shuo-jonq.deal jiow shuo, 'Bujoen chou-ian, busheu chou-ian! Woo gaw.sonq .nii busheu chou-ian .me!' 24 Jearu woo yeou t-jiann heen nan tzuoh .de shyh.chyng sheang chiing .nii geei25 .woo tzuoh .i.tzuoh, woo jiow wenn .nii, 'Nii keen 26 geei .woo tzuoh jey-jiann shyh .bu.keen?' Yaw.sh nii shuo, 'Woo kann 27 jeh shyh heen nan .ba?' nah woo jiow jy.daw nii bukeen tzuoh .le.28 Jearu yeou g heen weishean .de dih.fangl, woo wenn .nii, 'Nii gaan shanq nall chiuh .bu.gaan?' yaw.sh nii shuo, 'Woo pah nall tay weishean .ba?' woo jiow jy.daw nii sh bugaan chiuh .le. Hair yeou haoshie 29 leang-fangmiann 30 .de shyh.chyng, kann.chii.lai 31 hao.shianq sh jenq-/aan leang-miall, chishyr 32 frwguoh sh shiangduey 33 .de, binq bu.sh shiangfaan .de. Lihru 34 nan.ren .de dueymiall sh neu.ren, sheauharl 35 .de dueymiall sh dah.ren. Fuh.chin .de dueymiall sh muu.chin, erltz .de dueymiall sh neu.erl, fuh-muu 36 .de dueymiall yow.sh tzyy-neu. Ge.ge .de dueymiall sh dih.dih, jiee.jiee 37 .de dueymiall sh mey.mey, suoo.yii shiong-dih 38 yow.sh jiee-mey .de dueymiall .le. He .de dueymiall sh chy, shoei .de dueymiall sh huoo, jell .de dueymiall sh nall, nii .de dueymiall sh woo. Tzoei shuo-huah, eel.tou 39 ting, shoou shiee-tzyh, kann-shu hair deei yonq yean.jing; suno.yü shuo, ting, shiee, kann, yow cherng.le 40 leang-duey dueymiall .de tzyh .le. Yaw.sh nii shianntzay Jongwen yee bwhuey shuo, yee imhuey ting, yee imhuey shiee, yee bwhuey kann, nah jiow.sh nii.de Jongwen hair mei shyue.de-huey. Faan.guoh.lai 41 shuo, gaanmiengl 42 nii bae Jongwen shyue-cherng.le 43 .de .shyr.howl, nah nii jiow yow shuo.dejoen, yow ting.de-ching, yow shiee.de-duey, yow kann.de-doong .le.

6. Ming.bair 'bright-white, — clear, to be clear about,' as distinguished from ching.chuu 'clear, distinct' (of things), as Woo ming.bair jeyg Hi, inwey jeyg Iii heen chiing.chuu. Sometimes, however, ming.bair and chiing.chuu are used interchangeably, except that ching.chuu cannot be used transitively, as ming.bair can. 7. The position of the clause renren dou jy.daw, renren dou ming.bair .de looks like an exception to the rule that a modifier must precede the modified. Actually, because of the final .de, it is not a modifier but a substantive construction in apposition to daw.Hi: '(This is a fixed principle), a principle which everyone knows and understands.' 8. Jiow 'old' as a state, as distinguished from lao 'old' in age. 9. Leeng ' cold'; reh 'hot'; liang ' cool'; noan.hwo ' warm.' But reh-shoei

176

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'hot (or warm) water'; liang-shoei 'cold water.' Some dialects have leengshoei for 'cold water.' 10. Heen is used much more frequently in Chinese than 'very' in English and consequently has a much weaker force. It can often be omitted in translation. 11. Of two pairs of opposites: (a) hao 'good,' huay ' b a d / (b) rong.yih 'easy,' nan 'difficult,' only hao and nan are commonly compounded with a following verb, each covering both meaning (a) and meaning (b). Thus, (a) haochy 'good to eat,' (b) hao tzuoh 'easy to do,'

nanchy 'taste bad,' nan tzuoh 'hard to do.'

We are spelling them differently — no space for (a) and space for (b) — but ambiguities do arise when the verb itself or the context cannot indicate which is meant, as Jeyg her.taur nan chy (same sound as nanchy) 'This walnut is hard to eat' or 'This walnut tastes bad.' Certain combinations, however, have fixed idiomatic meanings, as haokann 'beautiful,' haoting 'beautiful (to hear),' haoshow 'good to receive, — feelgood, comfortable,' nankann 'ugly,' nanting 'ugly (to hear),' nanshow 'hard to suffer, — uncomfortable, distressed, painful.' 12. In nan-yih, yih is the bound form of rong.yih. Dr. Sun Yat-sen's motto Jy nan shyng yih 'Knowing is difficult, doing is easy' is in the wenli style. 13. Suann 'reckon'; 'regard,' Kee.yii suann sh 'may be regarded as being,' the voice of the verb suann being neutral, as usual. 14. I-jenq i-faan is abbreviated form of Ig jenq ig faan 'One is right, the other is reverse.' 15. Yii.jing alternates with yiijinq. 16. Since there is no word in Chinese for 'things' to cover both 'objects' and 'affairs,' both dong.shi and shyh.chyng have to be mentioned. (There is a literary word shyhwuh to cover both, — because shyh means 'affair' and wuh means 'things.') 17. Bit idinq 'not necessarily': idinq bu . . . 'certainly not. . . .' 18. Deei, deei yaw or simply yaw 'must, have to.' 19. 'Bu'-tzell (1 N) 'J5«-word, the word bu,' pronounced bu(h).tzyh (N .1) .when the suffix -I is not used. Note that in close apposition, the specific word precedes the general. Cf. Wang .Shian.sheng 'Mr. Wang.' 20. Bii'ang is a frequent slurred form of biifang. Cf. 'f'rinstance.' 21. Ching 'light (opp. of heavy),' an unrelated homonym of ching 'clear.' 22. Pyngcharng 'level-constant, ·— average-ordinary, — ordinarily.' 23. Note use of tzemmyanql rather than jeyg. Tzemmyanql bushyng, lit.

ANTONYMS

177

'This way won't do!' Similarly, Bye nemmyanql or Bye nemmj means 'Don't do that!' 24. The particle .me is used to indicate an impatient tone, having the force of 'Can't you see?' or 'Why don't you understand?' It is really homonymous with the interrogative particle .ma, but the latter, because of sentence intonation, is usually longer and has a higher pitch. (See p. 59, and Ex. 3, p. 139.) 25. Geei 'give.' Since the phrase geei .woo is the first of two verbal expressions in series (p. 39e) it can be translated by an adverbial phrase and geei by a preposition, 'for, for the benefit of.' 26. Keen is an ordinary auxiliary verb like neng ' can,' yaw ' will.' There happens to be no corresponding English auxiliary verb meaning 'to be willing to.' 27. Woo kann 'As I look at it, — I think, I believe.' 28. This .le goes with the whole sentence, in which jy.daw is the main verb. 'Then I know t h a t . . .' — a new development. 29. Haoshie (alternating with haurshie) 'a good lot, — a good deal, a lot.' 30. Fangmiann 'locality-side, — aspect, side.' 31. Kann.chii.lai ' (when you) begin to look (at them), — at first sight.' 32. Chyishyr 'its reality, — as a matter of fact, really.' 33. Shiangduey 'mutually-facing, — opposite, relative.' Shiangfaan 'mutually opposed.' The distinction between shiangduey and shiangfaan is made only for discussion and not to be taken as serious philosophy. Shiangduey-luenn 'relativity theory.' 34. Lihru 'example-as, — e.g.,' much more formal than bii.fang. 35. Sheauharl (< sheau-hair-ΐ) 'child.' Sheau-sheauharl 'small child'; dah-sheauharl or dah-hairtz 'big child.'

36. Fuh-muu 'father and mother.' Shanq.ren 'the person above,—-a parent.' 37. Jiee.jiee has the tone pattern J "I, the first jiee does not change into the second tone. 38. Shiong is the literary form for ge.ge 'elder brother.' Note the scopes of the following terms: shiongdih 'brothers (collec.)' shiong.dih ' brothers (collec.)';' a younger brother';' I ' (polite form, in a speech) dih.shiong 'brothers (collec.)' dih.shiong.men 'brothers (collec.)'; 'brothers in arms, — the ranks, privates' (polite form, used by officers) 39. While eel.tou, eel.dou are the common forms for 'ear' and an illiterate speaker probably takes the second syllable for the same noun suffix .tou as in how.tou, the usual character written is that for duoo, AN for flowers.

178 40. 41. other 42. 43.

LESSON 8

Cherng ' t o form, to become'; ' t o complete.' Faan.guoh.lai 'turning over in-my-direction, — contrariwise, on the hand.' Gaanmiengl 'hurry-on-to tomorrow, — by tomorrow, — some day.' Shyue-cherng.le 'learn to completion, — have learned.'

EXERCISES 1. Make a list of all opposites or correlative words (without distinguishing them) that have appeared so far in Lessons 1-8. 2. Comment οχι the following statements as to truth, paraphrasing the content in your own words. For example — Jey-jiann shyh burong.yih tzuoh: Duey .le, jeh.sh ί-jiann heen nan tzuoh .de shyh.chyng. (a) Shyh.jieh.shanq .de dong.shi, yanqyanql dou yeou jenqmiall faanmiall .de. (b) Jey-jiuh huah .lii.tou .de daw.lii, mei.yeou ren bu ming.bair .de. (c) Dah gen doan sh i-jenq i-faan. (d) Shyue shuo Jong.gwo-huah sh heen rong.yih .de shyh.chyng. (e) Ig ren shuey-jaur.le jiow ting.bu-jiann ren.jia shuo-huah .de sheng.in .le. (f) Weishean .de shyh.chyng renren dou gaan tzuoh. (g) Fuh-muu-tei/?/-neu sh leang-duey jenq-faan-tzyh. (h) Ting, shuo, kann, shiee sh ι-jiann shyh. (i) Nii chwufei huey kann Jong.gwo-shu tsair neng shuo Jong.gwo-huah .ne. (j) Wang .Shian.sheng inwey bu pah weishean, suoo.yii bugaan tzuoh feiji. (k) Mei konql gen yeou shyh.chyng tzuoh sh ig jenqmiall ig faanmiall. (1) Ing'wen kann.chii.lai hao.shianq heen hao shyue, chyishyr ideal dou buhao shyue. 3. Translate into Chinese: (a) Of the things in this room there is none that I do not know what to call, (b) Why are you not afraid to fall out from (inside) an airplane? (c) This is a statement one hears every day. (d) By today yesterday's news is already old. (e) When one is standing ( j a n n j ) one is not sitting, when one is awake one is not sleeping, but when one is sleeping one may also be talking, since some people talk in their sleep, (f) Can you write both Chinese and English words at the same time? (g) I do not like to use words which are both difficult to write and difficult to understand, (h) May I ask you a question? (i) Ask her to come here and sit on my left (side), (j) Were you unwilling to give this to him (bae jeyg geei .ta) or were you afraid to (.ne)? (k) I was neither (yee bu.sh) unwilling nor afraid, I simply did not see him. (1) Will it be all right if I tell him as soon as I see him?

ANTONYMS

179

4.

Example: Answer: Given: Dih'i-tian, dih'ell-tian, dihsan-tian. Jey-been shu woo dih'i-tian hair mei Nii sh neei-tian kann-wan jeychii-tourl kann; been shu .de? dih'ell-tian (ad lib: nii daa-diannhuah .geei .woo .de .shyr.howl) woo jenq ('just') .tzay.nall kannj .ne; daw.le dihsan-tian woo tsair bae jeybeen shu kann-wan.le. (a) Chyan.tian ('day before yesterday'), tzwo.tian, jin.tian. Ν i.men sh neei-tian shanq-wan Dihba Keh .de? (b) Shyr-fen jong yiichyan ('ten minutes ago'), gangtsair, jey.hoel. Nii sh sherm shyr.howl chy-wan.le ney-i-dah-woan fann .de? (c) Liibaytian, Liibay'i, Liibay'ell. Nii sh neei-tian chu.chiuh mae.le ney-i-dahshie maubii .lai .de? (d) Liowg liibay yiichyan, guoh.le ig liibay, shianntzay. Jeyg way.gworen sh sherm shyr.howl shyue-huey.le Jong.gwo-huah .de? (e) Woo.men dou shiingj .de .shyr.howl, woo.men kuay yaw ('soon, about to') shuey-jiaw .de .shyr.howl, woo.men renren dou shuey-jaur.le .de .shyr.howl. Lao Tarn sh sherm shyr.howl shiee-wan jey-i-keh .Iii .de Jong.gwo-tzyh .de? (f) Diannhuah hair mei sheang .de .shyr.howl, woo jenq .tzay.nall daa-diannhuah .de .shyr.howl, woo daa-wan.le diannhuah yiihow. Nii jy.daw woo sh sherm shyr.howl sheang.chu .ta jiaw sherm ming.tzyh .lai .de? (g) Woo jinn.chiuh .de .shyr.howl, woo chu.lai .de .shyr.howl, woo yow hwei.chiuh .de .shyr.howl. Shian.sheng sherm shyr.howl shanq shin-keh .de? (h) Tzwol yeh.lii shyr'ell-dean jong, guoh.le .i.hoel, yow guoh.le .i.hoel. Nii jy.daw woo sherm shyr.howl tzwoh-wan.le neyg heen chyiguay .de menq? 5.

Example: Given: Shuo .de jonq.

A. B. A. B.

Answer: Shuo .de tzemm jonq, gow jonq .bu .gow .jonq ,1'a? Bu gow jonq, hair deei shuojonq.i.deal. Tzemm jonq, shyng .bu.shyng .Pa? Bushyng, vx! Tzay jonq.deal, woo gaw.sonq .nii hair .deei shuo .de genq jonq.i.deal .me!

(a) Shiee .de dah. (b) Daa .de sheang. (c) Tzuoh .de hao. (d) Shuo .de ching.chuu. (e) Fei .de gau. (f) Tzoou .de kuay. (g) Chii.lai .de tzao. (h) Shiee .de jenq. (i) Shuo .de haoting. (j) Daw .de tzao. (k) Mae .de duo. (1) Shiee .de haokann.

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LESSON 9 A GOOD MAN A: I will tell you about a man. B: What? About a man again? Is it about that — what is it? — Mr. Can't Finish Speaking? A: What do you mean, 'Mr. Can't Finish Speaking'? There is no such name as Speaking. B: No, no, I mean the, — the, the man with the name of — of — whatdo-you-call-him? Oh yes, that's right, he's called Mr. Can't Stop Talking, is that right? A: No, this time I am going to talk about another man, I am going to talk about a good man. Well, this man always says to people, "Every man in the world ought to 'Read good books, speak good words, be a good man, and perform good deeds.'" B: Why, that's excellent, what else in the world could be better than that? A: They are very good, to be sure, but although he wants to do these things, yet he has not the ability to carry out all these things. B: How is that? A: Well, take the matter of 'reading good books.' You see, he can't even recognize a character like 'dah,' what point is there in speaking of reading good books or bad books, then? B: That's right, in that case there will be no point in saying whether books are good or bad then. Well, 'speaking good words' should be easy to manage. A: It's easy, all right, but the words he says people often cannot understand very well. And it is not only strangers that can't understand him, you see, why, even those most intimate with him, those who are constantly with him from morning to night — be they his wife, the children in his own home, his servants, or his colleagues — they, too, often cannot understand him. B: (Laughs:) Oh, I see, not Mr. Can't Stop Talking, but Mr. No Clear Speaking, what? A: I told you there's no such name as Speaking! B: (Chuckles.) What sort of dialect does he speak? A: W-e-11, I can't tell you either. The kind of language he speaks is really very special. You don't know whether his speech is the Peiping dialect or the Nanking dialect, neither like the Shantung dialect, nor like the Szechwan dialect, somewhat like the Cantonese dialect, but also a little like the Shanghai dialect, half like Chinese, but also half like a foreign language, as it were.

A GOOD MAN

DIHJEOU

KEH

IG* HAO

REN

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A: Woo geei nii jeang 1 ig ren. B: Tzeemme? Yow jeang g ren l'a? Sh bush neyg — shermme Shuo Buwan Shg.? 2 A: Sherm 3 'Shuo Buwan Shg.'? Meiyeou shinq Shuo de.4 Β: Bush vx, woode yihsy sh shuo 6 neyg 6 vx, neyg shinq sherm.me — jiaw — jiaw sherm.me? Oh, duey le, jiaw Tarn .Butyng Shg., sh bush'a? A: Bush, jey.hwei woo jeang de yowsh ig ren, woo jeang ig hao-ren. Jeyg ren a, ta tzoong duey ren shuo, "Farn.sh 7 shyhjieh.shanq de ren a, dou inggai ' Dwu 8 hao-shu, shuo hao-huah, tzuoh 9 hao-ren, shyng 10 haoshyh."' B: Nah tzay hao meiyeou .lo,11 shyhjieh.shanq hair yeou sherm bii jeysyh-yanql genq hao d'a? A: Hao sh heen hao.12 Buguoh ta sweiran sheang tzemm tzuoh, keesh ta mei been.shyh bae yanqyanql dou tzuoh-dawle. B: Tzeem ne? A: Ar, haobii shuo 'dwu hao-shu' de huah ba.13 Nii chyau ta lian ig dah.tzyh 14 dou bu renn.de, hair tyi 1 5 sherm 16 dwu hao-shu dwu huay-shu ne? B: fie, nah yee shuo.bu-shanq 17 .sherm shu hao shu huay 18 le. Neme 'shuo hao-huah' tzoong 19 gai hao bann .lo? A: Hao bann sh hao bann, dannsh ta suoo 20 shuo de huah, ren.jia charngchangl ting.bu-dah-doong. Sh, budann sh shengren21 ting.bu-doong tade huah e, lian ta 2 2 düng shour de i-tian-daw-woan gen ta lao tzay ikuall 23 de ren — naapah 24 ta tay.x a, ta tzyhjii jia.lii de sheauharl a, yonq.ren 25 a, torngshyhmen 26 a — tamen yee charngchangl yeou ting.budoong ta de shyrhowl.27 B: O-h-oh,28 bush Tarn Butyng Shg., sh Shuo Buching Shg., ar? A: Woo gawsonq nii mei shinq Shuo de me! B: Hehe! Ta shuo de sh sherm dihfangl de huah 29 ne? A: Eng — woo yee shuo.bu-shanqlai 30 le. Ta shuo de ney-joong huah jensh tehbye de heen.31 Ta shuo de yee bujydaw sh Beeipyng-huah, yee bujydaw sh Nan.jing-huah, bu shianq Shan.dong-huah, yee bu shianq Syh.chuan-huah, yeoudeal shianq Goangjou-huah, yow yeoudeal shianq Shanq.hae-huah, iball 32 shianq Jonggwo-huah, yow iball shianq waygwohuah shyhde. * From Lesson 9 on, dots before neutral-tone syllables will be omitted. But in new compounds, before unstressed localizers and complements, and in special cases where there is possibility of doubt, the dot will be kept. (A dot before a compound localizer or complement goes for both syllables.) Tone sandhi will also be left unmarked.

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Β: It isn't anything in particular, and yet there's something of everything in it, is that right? A: Yes, it's just a queer sort of language, which is neither Chinese nor Occidental, with a southern intonation and a northern accent. B: If what he says is so difficult to understand, how do you know that he is a good man, then? A: Uh — I think you can say — uh — there are two reasons. In the first place, he is the sort of man who, most of all, is willing to help people. So long as it is something beneficial to others, there is nothing that he is not willing to do, there is nothing that he is not glad to do. Not only can he do things others regard as difficult to do, but in addition he dares to do things others do not dare to do. If he believes that a certain thing is something a man ought to do, then he will certainly go right off and do it. B: Then haven't the two things that you call 'being a good man' and 'performing good deeds' become identical things? A: No, no! And that's just what I was going to — what I was going to call my second point. B: And your second point is —? A: Secondly, this man not only performs good deeds all his life, but also has a good heart. I think a man must have a good heart before he can be regarded as a good man. B: But his heart is inside, how can you find out whether it is good or not? A: There are ways to find out a little about it, too. Although I cannot understand very well what he says, still he seems to have a very good disposition. When others are happy, he is happy, too; when others are unhappy, he is also unhappy. When others laugh, he laughs, too; when others are feeling bad, he always goes to comfort them. Therefore, although I cannot see his heart, still I believe that, as a person, he certainly is good-hearted. That he is a good man is therefore absolutely beyond question. B: Yeah, according to what you say, I think this man is pretty good, eh? A: Isn't he, though?

NOTES 1. Jeang 'talk about, discuss, explain.' In other dialects jeang is often used for shuo 'say, speak' and jeang-huah for shuo-huah. 2. Shg., abbreviation for Shiansheng. 3. Compare Sherm jiaw 'hao-ren'f "What do you mean by 'good man'?" with Sherm 'hao-ren'f! "What do you mean, 'good man'?!"

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B : Sherm dou bush, sherm dou yeoudeal tzay .lii.tou, sh bush'a? A: Duey le, jeanjyr sh i-joong bu-Jong-bu-Shi, 34 nan-chiang-beei-diaw 35 de guay-huah. 36 B : T a shuo de huah jihran 3 7 nemm nan doong, neme tzeem jydaw ta sh g hao-ren ne? A : Eng — wo sheang keeyii shuo — yeou leangg yuan.guh. Dih'itserng, 38 ta jeyg ren a,39 ta tzuey keen bang ren de mang.40 J y y yawsh 41 duey bye.ren yeou hao.chuh 42 de shyh.chyng, ta meiyeou bukeen gann de, meiyeou buyuann.yih 43 tzuoh de. T a budann neng tzuoh renjia yiiwei nan tzuoh de shyh, binqchiee 44 gaan tzuoh renjia suoo bugaan tzuoh de shyh. Jearu ta shiangshinn i-jiann shyhchyng sh ig ren inggai tzuoh d'a, ta jiow idinq yaw chiuh tzuoh .chiuh de. Β : Neme nii suoowey 45 'tzuoh hao-ren, shyng hao-shyh' — leang-yanql shyh, bush biann-cherngle 46 iyanq de le ma? A: Bush vx! jeh jiowsh woo jenq yaw 4 7 shuo de — suoowey dih'elltserng le. B : Dih'ell tserng tzeem ne? A: Ell-lai 4 8 a, jeyg ren budann ibeytz 49 tzuoh hao-shyh, erlchiee ta shin hao. 60 Woo sheang ig ren feideei 61 shin hao, tsair neng suann hao-ren. B : Keesh ta shin tzay liitou nii tzeem kann.de-chu t a 5 2 hao buhao lai ne? A : Yee yeou fartz kann.de-chu ideal lai. T a shuo de huah sweiran woo ting.bu-dah-doong a, keesh tade shinq.chyng 53 haoshianq feicharng 54 hao. Bye.ren gaushinq ta yee gaushinq; bye.ren bukuay.hwo ta yee bukuay.hwo. Ren.jia shiaw 65 ta tzoong shiaw; ren.jia nanshow de shyrhowl ta jiow tzoong chiuh an.wey .ren.jia. Suooyii woo sweiran kann.bu-jiann tade shin, keesh woo shiangshinn jeh ren idinq 56 shin hao. Suooyii shuo ta sh hao-ren a, nahsh jyueduey 6 7 meiyeou wenntyi 6 8 de. Β : £ r , jaw nii jehyanql jeang de, woo sheang jeyg ren daw 5 9 hair butsuoh, 60 ar? A: Keebush ma? 33

The omission of jiaw, like the omission of ' b y ' in the English, makes the question much stronger. 4. Literally, 'There is no one who is surnamed Shuo.' 5. Woode yihsy sh shuo, usually spoken very rapidly, is the regular expression for Ί mean' in correcting oneself. Another common form is Woo sh yaw shuo. 6. Neyg, often with repetition, is a common form of hesitation. Jeyg

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is even more common than neyg as a filler-in, especially in an extemporaneous speech. (See Lesson 24, p. 293.) 7. Farn.sh 'whoever is,' 'whatever is,' 'all.' 8. Dwu 'read (aloud),' slightly more formal than niann 'read (aloud).' 9. Tzuoh-ren 'act (as) a person, be a person, conduct oneself.' 10. Shyng 'perform,' as a transitive verb, is a more formal word than tzuoh 'do.' As an intransitive verb, meaning 'will do, okay,' it is an everyday word. 11. Tzay hao meiyeou, lit. 'anything still better does not exist.' The particle .lo (pronounced like English 'law') means 'obviously, of course, it goes without saying.' It is used more frequently in Southern Mandarin than in Peiping, where a simple le would more commonly be used here. 12. V-sh-V Constructions. — When a verb (including adjectives) is repeated with sh inserted in between, the construction has a concessive force, which can be translated as 'to be sure,' 'all right,' or merely a rising-fallingrising intonation on the last stress group. Thus, Hao sh hao ' (as for being) good, it is good,' 'it's good, to be sure,' 'it's good, all right,' 'it's good (with Ί J over 'good'), b u t . - . . . ' 13. Haobii . . .ba 'For instance, let us talk about the matter (huah) of reading good books.' 14. If pronounced dah-tzyh, with stress on tzyh, then the sentence would mean 'He does not recognize a single big character,' an equally common way of describing illiteracy. 15. Tyi 'lift (from above), raise'; 'raise the point of, —mention.' 16. The form verb + sherm + object is often used as a rhetorical question implying 'What's the use for, what's the point in . . . ?' Thus, Nit buhuey shuo Jonggwo-huah shuo sherm Jonggwo-huah nef 'If you can't speak Chinese, what's the point in speaking (i.e. pretending to speak) Chinese, then?' 17. Shuo.bu-shanq 'cannot speak so as to come up (within range of relevancy), — there is no point in saying . . . .' 18. Note the predicative position of the adjectives hao and huay. 19. Tzoong 'always,' here used in the extended sense of 'should anyway, surely.' The final particle .lo is translated by pronouncing 'manage' with a low pitch on ' m a n - ' and a rising pitch on '-age,' something like J Λ. 20. Suoo is an emphatic adverb, with the force of 'actually, indeed, do . . . ,' occurring, like other adverbs, after the subject (if any) and before the verb. Because suoo is used mostly in de-constructions, which are usually translatable by relative clauses using 'whom, which, what,' it will be useful to associate it, for translation purposes, with such relatives, although grammatically it is still an adverb. Thus, woo suoo jeang de ren ' I-actuallytalk-about man, — the man (whom) I am talking about'; ta suoo chy de dongshi 'the thing (that) he eats.'

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21. Sheng 'unripe'; 'uncooked'; 'unfamiliar, unknown,' opp. of shour 'ripe'; 'cooked'; 'familiar.' Shengren 'stranger'; shourren 'an acquaintance.' 22. A de is understood here. When there is a string of de's, one or more of them may be omitted. 23. Ikuall 'one-lump, — together.' 24. Naapah Svhat-fear, — no matter if they are, be they . . . .' 25. Yonq-ren 'to employ people'; yonq.ren 'servant.' 26. Torngshyh 'same-job, — colleague, fellow-worker,' also used like a verb-object construction as Woo gen ta torngle sheuduo shyrhowl shyh Ί have worked with him for a long time.' 27. Tarnen yee . . . de shyrhowl ' they, too, often have times when they cannot understand him.' 28. The spelling O-h-oh is to suggest a slight laughter superimposed on the vowel of Oh Ί see.' 29. There is a learned term fangyan 'locality-speech' for 'dialect.' Ordinarily, the word huah is used in referring to dialects and languages. 30. Shuo.bu-shanqlai 'cannot speak up (from my memory or limited knowledge), — cannot tell for sure.' Distinguish from shuo.bu-shanq 'there is no point in saying.' 31. Note the use of heen as complement here. 32. Bann 'half' can be used either as an AN, as in iball (< i + bann Η—I) 'one half,' or as a determinative, as bann-kuay chyan 'half a piece of money, — half a dollar,' bann-dean jong 'half an hour.' 33. Interrogative-Plus-Tou Constructions. — An interrogative plus tou (or yee) has the meaning of 'any, every.' Sheir dou jydaw 'everybody knows'; neeig dou shyng 'any one will do'; naal dou kann.bu-jiann ta 'can't see him anywhere'; ta sherm dou chy 'he eats anything.' So, with a negative, sherm dou bush 'it isn't anything in particular.' (See also p. 52.) 34. Bu-Jong-bu-Shi de 'neither Chinese nor Occidental' is used in a derogatory sense. 35. Nan-chiang-beei-diaw ' southern-tone-northern-tune, — mixed accent.' 36. Guay 'queer,' as against chyiguay 'strange.' Chyi as a free word is a more literary word, meaning 'exotic, marvelous.' 37. Jihran 'since, if (i.e., if, as you claim),' Fr. puisque. 38. Tserng, AN for things in layers or tiers, like bey.uo 'bedding,' lou 'storied house,' yuan.guh 'reasons,' which are thought of as being in layers. 39. Ta jeyg ren a 'This man (like) him, — he as a person.' 40. Bang-mang 'help-busy, — help' is an intransitive verb. An object in English is translated by a possessive form, as bang woode mang 'help me.' 41. Jyy yawsh 'if only, so long as.' Contrast with jyy yeou 'only if.'

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42. Yeou hao.chuh 'have point of advantage, — advantageous, beneficial.' 43. Yuann.yih 'willing to, glad to,' has a more positive implication than keen which merely indicates absence of aversion. 44. Binq0chiee 'moreover.' 45. Suoowey 'that which is called,' nii suoowey 'that which you call.' Wey 'call, speak of' is not a free word in the spoken style. 46. Biann 'change'; cherng 'to form.' As complement, cherng can be translated as 'into.' 47. Jenq yaw 'just going to.' 48. I-lai, ell-lai, etc. 'in the first place, in the second place,' etc. 49. Ibeytz 'one-generationful, — all one's life.' 50. S - P Predicates. — Ta shin hao is not to be analyzed as Tade shin hao, although the latter means about the same thing. Ta is the subject of shin hao and shin is the subject of hao: 'As for him, the heart is good.' Forms like shin hao are subject-predicate predicates or S - P predicates (p. 35). In the following comparison, any one of the two Chinese constructions can be translated into any one of the three English constructions, but only the forms with tade and ' his' correspond grammatically. Ta shin hao: Tade shin hao: (Not idiomatic in Chinese): (No such form in Chinese):

(No such form in English.) 'His heart is good.' 'He has a good heart.' 'He is good-hearted.'

51. Feideei 'must, necessarily'; feideei . . . isair ' m u s t . . . before . . . .' 52. Although ta refers to an inanimate object (shin) and is the subject of hao buhao, the fact that it comes after kann.de-chu (lai) makes its use possible. 53. See Note 50. 54. Although feicharng means literally 'un-usual,' it actually means, when used adverbially, ' extremely.' The word for ' unusually' is yihcharng (de), lit. 'different from usual.' 55. Shiaw 'laugh'; 'smile.' 56. Since shin hao is a predicate, it can take a modifier idinq, which would not be possible if a de were understood between ren and shin. 57. Jyueduey 'exclude (the) relative, — absolutely.' 58. Wenntyi 'inquiry-topic, — problem, question.' 59. Daw 'inverted'; 'contrariwise'; 'rather (to my surprise),' a homonym of daw 'reach'; 'to.' 60. Butsuoh 'not wrong'; 'not bad, pretty good,' a favorite show-off word with foreign speakers of Chinese. 61. Exercise 3, Example. Huey in huey Shanqhae-huah is used in the sense of 'have a practical command of.' Cf. Können Sie Deutsch?

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EXERCISES 1. Examples: Given: Hao bu hao? Duo bu duo? Huey tzuoh buhuey? tzuoh.de-wan ma?

Jiel idinq

Answer: Hao sh hao, keesh (or dannsh, or buguoh) bu duo. Tzuoh sh huey tzuoh (or huey sh huey, or huey tzuoh sh huey tzuoh), buguoh jiel bu idinq tzuoh.de-wan.

(a) Sheang chiuh ma? Shianntzay chiuh ma? (b) Chy le meiyeou? Chy de dongshi gow bu gow? (c) Nii shiihuan dwu Jonggwoshu ma? Nii rennde de Jonggwo-tzyh duo buduo? (d) Nii shuey-jaurle tzuoh-menq bu tzuoh? Shuo menqhuah bu shuo? 2.

Example: Given: Jey-wey shiansheng yow ay shuo hao-huah, yow shiihuan tzuoh hao-shyh.

Answer: Jey-wey shiansheng budann ay shuo hao-huah, erlchiee (or binqchiee) shiihuan tzuoh hao-shyh.

(a) Jeyg ren shin yow huay, shin.Iii yow bu chingchuu. (b) Wang Tay.tay yow huey shuo waygwohuah, yow huey shiee waygwotzyh. (c) Ta shuo de huah yow chyiguay, sheng'in yow nan doong. (d) Na gangbii shiee-tzyh, yow bii chianbii hao shiee, yow bii ta haokann. 3. Example: Given: Answer: Ta buhuey 61 Shanqhae-huah bu- Ta sweiran buhuey Shanghae-huah, yawjiin b, ta huey Goangjoukeesh ta huey Goangjou-huah. huah b! (a) Woo mei daw.guoh Nanjing h, woo daw.guoh (b) Ta shuo-huah shuo de bu haoting fe, ta shiee-tzyh shiee kann fe! (c) Woo bujydaw ta mingtzyh jiaw sherm έ, woo jiaw sherm έ! (d) Meiyeou shinq Shuo d'£, jyy yeou shinq 4. Example: Given: Jeyg dongshi heen hao.

Beeipyng de heen haojihde ta haw Tarn d'fe!

Answer: Jeyg dongshi hao de heen. Tzeem tzemm hao? Jen hao-jyile!

(a) Ta shuo de ney-joong huah heen telibye. (b) Jeyg ren heen chyiguay. (c) Jeyg neuharl ('girl') heen haokann. (d) Jey-beel shu .lii.tou de shyhchyng heen haowal.

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5.

Example: Given: Jihran bu rennde tzyh, dangran genq buhuey dwu-shu lo!

Answer: Lian tzyh dou bu rennde, nah hair dwu sherm shu ne?

(a) Jihran buneng tzuoh sheau-shyh, dangren genq buneng tzuoh dah-shyh lo! (b) Jihran bugaan tzuoh chihche, dangran genq bugaan tzuoh feiji lo! (c) Jihran kann.bu-jiann baw, dangran genq kann.bujiann baw.shanq de shinwen lo! (d) Ta jihran buhuey chou-ian, dangran genq buhuey chuei ianchiual lo!

LESSON 10 THE TAILLESS RAT* Once upon a time there was a rat who could not make up his mind about anything. No matter what you asked him, he never had anything definite to answer you. For example, if you were to say, " T h e weather is very fine today, isn't i t ? " he would perhaps say, "Maybe it is, the weather today is not bad, but maybe it isn't particularly good either — I am afraid it isn't a very fine day today — w-e-11 — I don't know whether this kind of weather is to be regarded as good or bad after all." If you asked him, "Will you be free this afternoon to go out and take a stroll with me?" he would say, "Oh, I am sorry, I have no time in the afternoon, I am free in the morning though — oh, no, no, what I mean to say is, I am busy in the morning, but there's nothing in the afternoon — but what if it rains in the afternoon? We had better wait until we have had lunch before we decide; besides, I don't think this is anything of great urgency, you don't have to decide right away, why must we decide immediately? Why such a hurry? " Sometimes, someone would ask him, " M r . Rodens, how many sons and daughters have you?" and he would say, "Oh — I — I — uh — I believe I have seven sons and eight daughters — uh — well, let me see, perhaps it's eight sons and seven daughters maybe — anyway I have ten-odd children all told — or, or maybe it's twenty-odd or thirty, or thereabouts, I can't say for sure. Yes, I guess I have at least twenty-odd children." One midnight, there was a great storm, which was on the point of blowing down the dilapidated house Mr. R a t was living in. The friends who lived with him all were startled out of their sleep and called to him, " H u r r y up and run, don't lie sleeping there! Wake up, hey, get u p ! " * This story appeared first in Henry Sweet's Primer of Spoken English, later was used by William Cabell Greet in his American Speech recordings. It has been modified and very much expanded here.

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6. Translate into Chinese: (a) What he said was very interesting, to be sure, but once he started talking, then he couldn't stop, (b) T h a t he is an educated man ('read-book-man') is beyond question, (c) Since you cannot very well understand what he says, how do you know whether he is kind-hearted or not? (d) These men are not even afraid of death, not to speak of fire or water, (e) He doesn't understand anything. (See Note 33.) (f) Any time will do. (g) What I know is really not much, (h) This is the thing I am most afraid of. (Use suoo in (g) and (h).)

DIHSHYR WUWOEI

KEH SHUU

1

Tsorngchyan 2 yeou g hawtz, ta sherm shyhchyng dou daa.bu-dinq jwu.yih. 3 Sweibiann nii wenn ta sherm huah, t a tsornglai meiyeou 4 idinq de huah hweidar nii de. Biiru nii shuo, ' Jiel tian.chih jen hao, ar?' ta jiow yee sheu shuo, " S h de ba, jintian tian.chih butsuoh, keesh yee sheu butzeem 5 hao, woo pah jiel jeh tial budah hao ba, — ss 6 — woo yee bujydaw jey-tzoong 7 tial dawdii 8 suann hao suann huay le." Yawsh nii wenn ta, " N i i jiel woan.bann.tial 9 yeou meiyeou gong.ful 1 0 gen woo shanq jie.shanq 11 .chiuh tzooux a ? " ta jiow shuo, 'Aiia, dueybujuh, 12 woo shiahwuu mei gong.ful, shanqwuu dawsh yeou konql — eh bush vx, woo sh yaw shuo shanq.bann.tian 13 mang, shiah.bann.tian mei shell — keesh shiahwuu yawsh shiah-yeu 14 ne? Tzarmen diing hao hairsh 15 deeng chy-guohle 16 wuufann 17 tzay daa-dinq jwu.yih b a ; woo sheang jeh yow bush sherm diing jyi de shyhchyng, buyonq maashanq 1 8 jiow jyuedinq ά'έ, herbih 19 lihkeh jiow jyuedinq ne? Gannma tzemm j a u - j y i 2 0 a? Yeou shyrhowl yeou ren wenn ta, " L a o Shuu Shg. a, Nin Fuu.shanq 21 yeou jii-wey shaw.ye, 22 jii-wey sAeaw.jiee a ? " ta jiow shuo, " E n g — woo — woo ia, woo sheang woo yeou chig erltz bag neu.erl — ss — eng, ranq woo kann a, meijoel 2 3 sh bag erltz chig neu.erl ba? Herng.sh 24 woo igonq yeou shyrjiig sheauharl — hesh, hesh yeesheu yeou ell-sanshyr-geh shanqshiah yee shuo.bu-dinq. woo tsai woo jyhshao yeou ellshyr.laig 25 sheauharl n e . " Yeou i-tian bannyeh, dah-feng dah-yeu; 2 6 bae jey-wey Lao Shuu Shg. juh de ney-suool poh-farngtz 27 dou kuay chuei-ta 28 le. Gen ta torng-juh de i-ban 29 perng.yeoumen dou shiah-shiing le 30, jiow chiilai jiaw ta shuo, "Kuay.deal pao ba, bye shuey de .nail l'a! Shiing le, hei, chiilai l ' a ! "

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The rat said lazily, sort of half awake and half asleep, " I t is not yet light now, what are you getting up so early for? Oh, it seems to be raining out, that's right, it is actually raining." "Hurry up and go, don't delay any more! What are you waiting for? The house is going to collapse! And if you won't go, we'll have to go without you." "The house will collapse? This house is perfectly good! It has not collapsed, has it? I have stayed here for so long and this house has never collapsed before." While he was talking, the wind was blowing harder and harder and the rain was falling more and more heavily. Fortunately, this Mr. Rat was the kind of person that never could make up his mind. He had just said that the house could not collapse, but after thinking it over, he said again, "Oh, my, this house is shaking so badly, there's no telling it may collapse after all. No, I am going to run for it, too." Just as he walked out the door, he said aga : n, "Goodness, gracious! such a heavy rain! I had better not go after all." Hardly had he finished his sentence, when suddenly Bang! with a crash, a whole great big house collapsed. "Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak!" Was that rat crushed to death, I wonder? No, he was not. For this indecisive Mr. Rat could not even make up his mind whether to die or not. Just as he had gone out of the front door, the house collapsed. Luckily, his body had already reached the outside and therefore did not get crushed after all. But while he was standing at the doorway, he left his tail inside the room, and it was cut off by a pillar which had fallen down. From that time on, he became a rat without a tail. But since he had his tail cut off, he has also become a rat with decision and has never again been so indecisive as before. NOTES 1. Wu, literary word for meiyeou 'have not.' In spoken Chinese, wuis a bound word, meaning 'without, -less.' Woei is the bound stem word in woei.ba 'tail,' more colloquially, yii.ba. Shuu is the bound stem word in Laoshuu 'rat, mouse,' more colloquially hawtz, lit. 'consumer, waster.' Wuwoei-shuu = meiyeou yii.ba de hawtz. 2. Tsorngchyan 'from before, — formerly, once upon a time.' 3. Jwu.yih 'intention, decision, idea (for action).' Daa-dinqle jwu.yih 'make definite one's idea, — make up one's mind.' 4. Tsornglai bu, tsornglai meiyeou 'never before.' 5. Butzeemme 'not in any way, not particularly.' 6. Ss, pronounced with air sucked in between the teeth, expresses

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Ney-jy hawtz jiow bann-shiing-bann-shuey de nemm laanlhalde 31 shuo, 'Jey.hoel tian hair mei lianq,32 gannma tzemm tzao jiow chiilai a? Aiia, waytou haoshianq shiah-yeu ne ba, butsuoh, dyichiueh sh shiahj-yeu ne.' " K u a y tzoou .b'ou! 33 Buneng tzay chyr .l'ou! Hair deeng shermme ia? Farngtz dou kuay dao .l'ou! Nii bu tzoou woomen deei shian 34 tzoou le." "Farngtz yaw dao? 35 Jeh farngtz hair haohaulde me! Ta binq mei dao a! Woo tzayjell daile tzemm jeou, jeh farngtz tsornglai yee mei dao.guoh ia." Ta shuoj-huah de shyrhowl, feng yueh gua yueh lih.hay, 36 yeu yueh shiah yueh dah. Haotzay 37 jey-wey Shuu Shg. sh lao daa.bu-dinq jwu.yih de. Ta gang shuole farngtz buhuey dao, keesh ta sheangle sheang yow shuo, "Aiia, jeh farngtz yau de tzemm lih.hay, meijoel jen huey dao ba? Derle 38 ba, woo yee tzoou le." Gang tzoou-chule menkooul, 39 ta yow shuo, "Hao-jia.huoo! 4 0 Tzemm dah de yeu! Hairsh bye tzoou derle." Huah hair mei shuo-wan, hurande konglonglong! i-sheng, i-dah-suoo 41 farngtz jeenggehlde 42 ta le. 'Tzel, tzel, tzel, tzel!' Nah hawtz yah.syyle meiyeou? Meiyeou, mei yah.syy. Inwey jey-wey mei jwu.yih de Lao Shuu Shg. a, ta lian syy bu syy dou daa.bu-dinq jwu.yih de. Ta gang i tzoou-chule dahmen, nah farngtz jiow ta.shiahlai le. Shinq.kuei ta shentz yiijinq dawle waytou, suooyii dawdii mei yah-jaur. 43 Keesh ta jann de menkooul de shyrhowl bae i-tyau yii.ba geei 44 Iah de utz liitou le, — suooyii bey 46 i-gen dao.shiahlai de dah-juhtz geei tzar-duann le. Tsorng tsyy 4 6 yiihow, ta jiow biann-cherngle i-jy wuwoei-shuu le. Dannsh ta tzyhtsorng dioule yii.ba guohhow a, ta yee biann-cherngle i-joong yeou jyueduann de hawtz le, bu tzay shianq 47 yiichyan nemm mei jwu.yih le.48

hesitation or thinking over. I t is different from the Japanese sucked in ss, which is pronounced very long and expresses politeness. 7. Jey-tzoong 'this kind,' -tzoong being a blend between joong 'kind' and tzong 'lot, group' (as in dahtzong 'large lot'). Tial 'day (as to weather).' 8. Dawdii ' t o bottom, at bottom, — after all.' 9. Woan.bann.tial 'late half day, — late afternoon.' 10. Gong.Jul = konql 'leisure time.' Gong.fu means either 'leisure time' or 'time during which one has had a special training, — proficiency.' 11. Jie.shanq 'on the street, in town.' 12. Dueybujuh ' cannot face (you) and stay there, cannot maintain my face towards you, — I am sorry.'

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13. Shanq.bann.tian = shanq.wuu; shiah.bann.tian = shiah.wuu. 14. Impersonal V - 0 Constructions. — A Chinese sentence not only may have a subject understood, but may not have any subject at all. Thus, shiah-yeu le 'downs rain, — it is raining.' Most weather phenomena are expressions in the verb-object sentence form as gua-feng le 'blows wind,' shiah-wuh le 'downs fog, — there is a fog,' jaur-huoo le 'kindles fire,— there is a fire.' The le indicates that it is usually a new situation that one notices while making such remarks. 15. Instead of hao.i.deal, the usual expression for 'had better' is diing hao 'best' or diing hao hairsh 'best after all.' 16. Chy-guohle 'have already eaten,' should be distinguished from chy.guoh 'have once eaten before.' 17. Wuufann 'noon meal.' In Peiping the term tzaofann 'morning meal' is often used for the second of three meals, as distinguished from dean.shin 'dot the heart, — refreshment/ used for breakfasts, teas, snacks or for articles of food other than regular dishes. To avoid ambiguity, tzao-dean or tzao-dean.shin is often used for 'breakfast.' The term woanfann 'evening meal' is used in practically all dialects. 18. Maashanq (with full tones) 'on horse, — right away, at once,' the horse being the fastest means of transportation in the old days. 19. Herbih 'why must?' Lihkeh 'standing-moment, the moment while you wait, — immediately.' 20. Jau-jyi 'get nervous.' 21. Fuu.shanq 'up at the mansion,' polite term for 'your family'; 'your house'; 'your native place.' 22. Shaw.ye 'young squire, Master,' here used for 'your son.' Sheau.jiee 1 -I 'little maiden, — Miss,' here used for 'your daughter.' 23. Joen 'accurate,' meijoel 'there is no certainty, there is no telling but that ' 24. Herng.sh (< herng-shuh) 'horizontal or vertical, — anyway.' Igonq 'all together, in all.' 25. The form -.lai has a different range from -jii. While ellshyr-jiig means from 21 through 29, ellshyr.laig has a more indefinite range from about 20 to not much over 25. 26. Dah-feng dah-yeu ' great wind and great rain' is a noun predicate in absolute position, that is, without a subject or verb. Bae jey-wey . . . starts a new sentence. 27. Ρ oh 'broken'; 'worn.' Kuay 'fast'; 'on the point of.' 28. Ta 'to collapse,' unrelated homonym of ta 'he, etc.' 29. I-ban 'a class, a group.' 30. Shiah 'scare, startle,' unrelated homonym of shiah 'down.' 31. Laanlhalde reduplicated form of laan 'lazy.' 32. Tian lianq 'the sky brightens, — the day breaks, it's light.'

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33. The particle .ou indicates a lively, but mild, warning or urging, 'mind you!' A preceding .ba plus .ou becomes .b'ou and .le plus .ou becomes .I'ou. 34. Shian tzoou, lit. 'go first.' 35. Dao 'topple over.' 36. Lih.hay 'fierce(ly).' 37. Haootzay 'the good (thing) lies in, — fortunately.' 38. Der 'done, ready.' Derle ba 'consider that done, — let's call it a day, — I am going to change my mind.' 39. Koou 'mouth, opening'; kooul 'opening.' 40. Hao-jia.huoo 'good utensil, — goodness, gracious!' (See also p. 50.) 41. An adjective usually comes between an AN and the noun. When it is placed before an AN, there is a more lively meaning to it: i-suoo dah farngtz 'a large house'; i-dah-suoo farngtz 'a great, big house.' 42. Jeeng 'whole, integral.' Jeenggehlde 'the whole thing.' 43. The complement -